


If Tomorrow Never Comes

by annaswintour



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Titanic (1997)
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/F, Falling In Love, Mirandy, Runway - Freeform, Tragedy, fashion - Freeform, i don't even know if this is good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-20 03:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18984820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaswintour/pseuds/annaswintour
Summary: The story of two people from different worlds falling hopelessly in love on an ill-fated ship. Narrated by Caroline Priestly.





	1. Ghost Ship

**Author's Note:**

> ***this follows the story line of James Cameron's Titanic. I in no way lay claim to the plot or the characters from The Devil Wears Prada***

The ocean is alive. It's heartbeat can be felt miles below the surface. There, where no light reaches, and creatures dwell on long sunken debris from the realm above. It's an entirely different world.

At least, that's what Brock Lovett feels as his deep sea submarines plunder across the ocean floor.

"Thirteen meters, you should see it," he called to the others over unclear radio chatter while squinting hard at a sonar screen. He moved quickly to get a glance out of the tiny submersible windows.

She appeared then, that ship. A phantom, as Brock has always called it, protected down under the water. The bow stared straight ahead, towering above the seafloor, standing just as it had landed eighty four years ago.

"Alright, now take her up and over the bow rail," he ordered. The radio call back was instant.

"Okay, Mir Two, we're going over the bow. Stay with us."

They plowed over Titanic, or what was left of her. The entire image of the ship beneath them, haunting. Brock pulled out a videotape and looked to the others before hitting the record switch.

"Okay, quiet, we're rolling," he said and angled the camera to where his face and also the ship outside could be seen from the window. "Seeing her coming out of the darkness like a ghost ship still gets me every time.

Brock turned the camera in his hand more so it showed his face directly. He continued.

"Still gets me every time; to see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at two thirty in the morning, April 15, 1912, after her long fall from the world above.

Anatoly rolled his eyes and muttered something in Russian. Bodine chuckled to himself and turned to the sonar.

"You're so full of shit, boss."

Mir Two kept diving, driving aft down the starboard side, past a huge anchor while Mir One passed over the seemingly endless forecastle deck, with it's massive anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, it's bronze windlass caps gleaming. The twenty two foot long subs are like white bugs in comparison to the enormous wreck.

Brock continued with the recording.

"Dive nine. Here we are again on the deck of Titanic; two and a half miled down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train going over an ant if our hull fails. These windows are nine inches thick and if they go, it's sayonara in two microseconds."

Mir Two began it's landing on the boat deck, right next to the ruins of the Officer's Quarters. Mir One was just above on the roof of the deck nearby.

Brock turned to the others.

"Right, let's go to work," he gestured to a headset and joystick nearby in the cramped sub. Bodine nodded and slipped on a pair of 3-D electronic goggles, and grabbed the joystick for the ROV, a small orange and black robot. The Robot was called Snoop Dog, much to Brock's protest, but everyone enjoyed the humor, and so he left it. The ROV flew forward from it's cradle.

"Walkin' the dog," Bodine chuckled to himself. He drove it away from the sub, paying out it's umbilical behind it like some kind of yo-yo. It looked like, Brock thought, an insect, with it's stereo video camera swiveling like eyes. It descended through an open shaft that once was the beautiful First Class Grand Staircase.

It dropped down several decks, then moved laterally into the First Class Reception Room. From the headset, Bodine could see the remains of the ornate handcarved woodwork which gave the ship its elegance move through the floodlights, the lines blurred by slow dissolution and descending rusticle formations. Stalactites of rust hand down so that at times it looks like a natural grotto.

The ROV turned and made way through a black doorway, entering the sitting room of a "promenade suite", one of the most luxurious staterooms on Titanic.

Bodine said, "I'm in the sitting room. Heading for bedroom B-54."

"Stay off the floor. Don't stir it up like you did yesterday," Brock scolded him.

"I'm tryin' boss."

Lights glinted in the brass fixtures of the nearly perfectly preserved fireplace. An albino Galathea crab crawled across it. Nearby were the remains of a divan and a writing desk. Snoop Dog crossed the ruins of the once elegant room and toward another door. It squeezed through the doorframe, scraping rust and wood chunks loose on both sides. It moved out of a cloud of rust and kept going.

"I'm crossing the bedroom," Bodine announced.

The remains of pillared canopy bed. Broken chairs, a dresser, through the walls of a collapsed bathroom, the porcelain commode and bathtub almost shone in the dark.

"Oops, somebody left the water running."

Lovett ignored Bodine's joke, but frowned at what appeared on the screen.

"Okay, I want to see what's under that wardrobe door."

The ROV deployed it's manipulator arms and began moving debris aside. A lamp lifted, it's ceramic colors as bright as they were in 1912.

"Easy, Lewis," Brock instructed. "Take it slow."

He gripped the wardrobe door, lying at an angle in the corner, and pulled with the ROV's gripper. It moved reluctantly in a cloud of silt. Under it sat a dark object. The silt cleared and Snoop Dog's cameras showed them what was under the door.

It couldn't be, Brock thought, beaming at the screen. But maybe it could be.

"Ooohh daddy-oh, are you seein' what I'm seein'?"

It was like seeing the Holy Grail.

"Oh baby, baby, baby. It's payday boys."

...

A small steel combination safe, the object of their dreams, dripped wet in the afternoon sun. It was quickly lowered onto the deck of a ship by winch cable and surrounded by the occupants of the Russian research vessel Akademik Mistislav Keldysh. A hand-wringing money guy named Bobby Buell who represented the limited partners joins in, as well as a documentary crew Brock hired to capture his moment of glory. Watching the safe as it was sawed open truly made him feel like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Who's the best? Say it?" Bodine wandered over to him, triumph etched into his bearded face.

"You are, Lewis," Brock grinned and turned to the video crew. "You rolling?"

"Rolling," answered the cameraman.

Brock nodded to his technicians to pull off the hinges of the safe. Well, here it was, the moment of truth. Here's where they all found out if the time, the sweat, the money spent to charter this ship and these subs, to come out to the middle of the North Atlantic, were worth it. If what they thought was in that safe, it would be.

Brock grinned wolfishly in anticipation of his greatest find yet. He moved closer, peering into the safe's wet interior.

The look on his face said it all.

"Shit," he whispered to himself. Bodine peered over his shoulder.

"You know, boss, the same thing happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered."

Brock angrily turned to the cameraman. "Get that outta my face."

Maybe there was no recovering from this.

...

Back inside the lab deck, several technicians worked quickly to remove papers held in the safe and placing them in a tray of water to separate them safely. Also in the room was a collection of artifacts from the stateroom being washed and preserved. Bobby Buell stood nearby on the satellite phone with the investors, trying to avoid the racket Brock was making by yelling at the video crew.

"Hey Brock, the partners would like to know how it's going."

Brock, annoyed, marched over and yanked the phone from his hand.

"Dave? Barry? Hi. Look, it wasn't in the safe-- no, look, don't worry about it, there're still plenty of places it could be; in the floor debris in the suite, in the Fashion Director's room, in the purser's safe on C deck--"

At that particular moment, something caught Brock's attention across the room, a piece of paper from the safe.

"Hang on a second," he huffed into the phone. He then stepped over to the tray and watched as a tech revealed a pencil drawing of a woman.

Brock observed the drawing closely, which was in excellent shape, though the edges had partially disintegrated. The woman was beautiful, and beautifully rendered. She is nude, though posed with a kind of casual modesty. She layed across an Empire divan, in a pool of light that seemed to radiate outward from her eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner was the date: April 14, 1912. And the initials AS.

The woman is not entirely nude. At her throat is a diamond necklace with one large stone hanging in the center.

Brock's eyes widened in realization, grabbing the reference photo from the clutter on the lab table. The photo itself was a period black and white image of a diamond necklace on a black velvet jewler's display stand. Brock held it up next to the drawing. It was clearly the same piece, the central stone almost heartshaped.

Brock inhaled sharply.

"I'll be God damned."

...

In a small rustic house full of ceramics, figurines, and folk art, a CNN report played softly on a tv set.

"Treasure hunter Brock Lovett is best known for finding Spanish gold in the Caribbean. Now he is using deep submergence technology to work two and a half miles down at another famous wreck... the Titanic. He is with us live via satellite from a Russian research ship in the middle of the Atlantic... hello Brock?"

"Yes, hi, Tracy. You know, Titanic is not just a shipwreck, Titanic is The Shipwreck. It's the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."

The sudden report caught the attention of an old woman, perhaps in her late eighties, early nineties, who went by the name of Caroline Montgomery.

She hauled herself to her feet, and slowly entered the living room, wiping pottery clay from her hands with a rag. Another younger woman, rushed in to help her.

"What is it, Nana?" she asked.

"Turn that up please, dear," Caroline ordered and stood in front of the tv.

The CNN report continued.

"Your expedition is at the center of a storm of controversy over salvage rights and even ethics. Many are calling you a grave robber," the reporter stated.

"Nobody called the recovery of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb grave robbing. I have museum trained experts here, making sure this stuff is preserved and catalogued properly. Take a look at this drawing, which was found earlier today."

The tv now pictured a simple drawing in a tray of water. It filled the entire screen.

"This is a piece of paper that's been underwater for eighty four years; and my team are able to preserve it intact. Should this have remained unseen at the bottom of the ocean for enternity, when we can see it and enjoy it now?

Caroline was galvanized by the image. Her mouth slowly dropped and hung open in amazement.

"I'll be God damned."

...

Brock Lovett, in a much better mood than earlier that day, supervised as Mir subs began loading and getting ready to go underwater. Bobby Buell, excitedly ran up to him, satellite phone in hand.

"There's a satellite call for you," he explained.

"Bobby, we're launching," Brock motioned him away, annoyed. "See these submersibles going in the water?"

"Trust me, you wanna take this call."

"This better be good." Brock reached for the phone, holding it up to his ear, not expecting anything particularly good.

"Hi, this is Brock Lovett. What can I do for you, Mrs....?" he glanced questioningly at Bobby.

"Montgomery. Caroline Montgomery."

Brock returned to the phone. "Mrs. Montgomery?"

From the other end, shaky, but understandable came through, "I was just wondering if you had found the 'Heart of the Ocean' yet, Mr. Lovett."

Brock nearly dropped the phone overboard before looking to Bobby, checking to see if what he heard was correct.

"Told you you wanted to take this call," he said smugly.

"Alright. You have my attention, Caroline. Can you tell me who the woman in the picture is?"

"Oh yes. The woman in the picture is my mother."


	2. Reflections Of The Past

An enormous Sea Stallion Helicopter thundered across the ocean and roared down to the only available landing within miles. Bodine and Brock, watching the chopper approach, began walking the length of the Keldysh.

Bodine shouted over the noise of submersible's going into the water for another dive.

"She's a goddamned liar! Some nutcase seeking money or publicity, God only knows why. Like that Russian babe, Anastasia."

Bobby Buell approached them quickly, reporting that the chopper was inbound. Brock nodded and began heading over to the landing spot.

Bodine went on.

"Caroline and Cassidy Priestly died on the Titanic with their mother when they were eleven years old. If she lived, she'd be nearly a hundred by now."

"Ninety five next month,"Brock chimed in.

"Okay, so she's a very old goddamned liar. I traced her as far back as the twenties when she was working as an actress. An actress. There's your first clue Sherlock. Her name was Caroline Sachs. Then she marries a guy named Montgomery, they move to Cedar Rapids and she punches out a couple of kids. Now Montgomery's dead, and from what I've heard Cedar Rapids is dead."

"And everybody who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead or on this boat but she knows."

They made it to the helipad just as the chopper landed with a thundering downblast and it's wheels bounced. The crew chief quickly began unloading, taking out about ten suitcases. Bodine shook his head.

"Doesn't exactly travel light, does she?"

Finally, the old woman herself was lowered to deck in a wheelchair, following her, another woman, quite a bit younger. Caroline, in her wheelchair, looked especially fragile amongst all the high tech gear, grungy deck crew, and gigantic equipment.

"Hi," Brock stepped toward her. "I'm Brock Lovett, welcome to the Keldysh."

Caroline nodded her head in acknowledgement, the younger woman stuck out her hand to shake Brock's.

"Hi, I'm Serena."

Bodine leaned in close to Brock's ear. "S'cuse me, I have to go check our supply of Depends."

...

Brock and Bodine approached them inside later, finding Serena to be unpacking Caroline's things in a small utilitarian room. There was a number of framed photos on the bureau, arranged carefully next to what Brock found odd, a fishbowl.

"Is your stateroom alright?"

"Oh yes," Caroline answered. "Very nice. Have you met my granddaughter, Serena? She takes care of me."

"Yes," Serena bent down next to the old woman's face. "We met just a few minutes ago, grandma. Remember, up on deck?"

Brock snuck a glance at Bodine, and found him to be rolling his eyes. He then took a look over to the photographs. They seemed to be the usual; children and grandchildren, her late husband. Caroline caught him looking.

"There, that's nice. I have to have my pictures when I travel."

"Would you like anything?" Brock offered. "Anything we can get you?"

Caroline nodded her head simply.

"I should like to see my mother's drawing."

...

It sat there, still, in the lab tray. Caroline confronted the picture, a relic from eighty four years ago. It has to stay in the water until they find a better way to preserve it. It swayed a rippled, almost like it was alive.

Interrupting the moment, Brock grabbed the reference photo of the necklace and brought it to her.

"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the same time ol' Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too; recut into a heart like shape, and it became Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond."

Caroline shook her head in distaste.

"Mother once said it was a dreadful, heavy thing." She pointed to the drawing. "She only wore it that once."

"You actually believe this was my great grandmother?" Serena asked.

"It is her, dear! Do you now understand the good looks in our bloodline?" Caroline chuckled.

The others laughed to themselves at her comment.

"I tracked it down through insurance records; an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claiment was, Caroline?" Brock asked her, hopeful that everything would check out.

"I should imagine someone named Ravitz," Caroline answered. A breath of shock and relief was released in the room.

"Irv Ravitz, right. Chairman of Elias-Clarke. For a diamond necklace his friend Jacqueline Follet was going to feature in the September issue of Runway when she replaced the editor in chief; your mother, a week before they sailed on Titanic. The claim was filed right after the sinking, so the diamond had to've gone down with the ship."

Brock turned his attention to Serena. "See the date?" he asked her.

"April 14, 1912," Serena stated out loud. Bodine cut in.

"Which means if your grandma is who she says she is, she was with her mother when she wore the diamond the day the Titanic sank."

Brock smiled at Caroline sweetly. "And that makes you my new best friend. He stood up abruptly and walked to another table nearby. He looked at Caroline before gesturing to some of the items across it.

"These are some of the things we've recovered from your stateroom."

Caroline wheeled herself over, taking in the objects before her. Laid out were about fifty objects or so, from mundane to valuable. Caroline was shrunken in her chair and could barely see over the table top, but with one trembling hand she lifted a tortoise shell hand mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. She caressed it wonderingly.

"This was mine. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it." She turned it over in her palms and gazed at her ancient face in the cracked glass.

"The reflection has changed a bit."

She spotted something else, a silver and moonstone art-nouveau brooch.

"My mother's brooch. Nigel's favorite. He wanted to go back for it. Caused quite a fuss."

A rush of images and emotions that had lain dormant for eight decades flooded through Caroline as she touched these objects, as she remembered.

Brock watched her silently.

"Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"

...

"She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along; punching holes like morse code-dit dit dit-, down the side, below the waterline. Now she's flooding in the jforward compartments; and the water spills over the tops of the bulkheads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up, slow at first, and then faster and faster until it's lifitng all that weight, maybe twenty or thirty thousand tons out of the water and the hull can't deal with that kind of pressure so what happens? Skrtttt!! She splits. Right down to the keel, which acts like a big hinge. Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level, but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and finally detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs then like a cork for a few minutes, floods, and finally goes under about 2:20 a.m. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision. The bow pulls out of its dive and places away, almost a half a mile before it hits the bottom going maybe twenty, thirty knots when it hits the ocean floor. Kaboom!"

In a simulation on screen, Caroline watched emotionless.

"Pretty cool huh?" Bodine asked after his thorough narration.

"Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course the experience of it was somewhat different," Caroline smiled vaguely, if it was even a smile, and turned away.

"Will you share it with us?" Brock inquired, sounding almost too desperate.

Caroline didn't verbally respond. She turned her attention back to the screens in the room, showing the sad ruins far below them. A view from one of the subs tracked slowly over the boat deck. Caroline recognized one of the Wellin davits, still in place. Ghostly waltz music echoed in her head, and the faint call of an officer's voice calling 'women and children only'. She felt shaken by the flood of memories and emotions, and dropped her head down into her hands, sobbing quietly. It was never her story, only her mother's story.

Serena's hands were instantly on the wheelchair.

"I'm taking her to rest."

"No!" Caroline protested, coming off surprisingly strong. 

"Nana, c'mon!"

"No!" the sweet old lady was gone, and there to replace her was a woman with eyes of steel. Brock signaled for everyone to be quiet.

"It's been eighty four years," she began, pausing suddenly from the start.

"It's okay, just tell us what you can--"

"Do you want to hear this story or not, Mr. Lovett?" Caroline questioned, opening her eyes to stare down upon him with a fierce glare, something she had inherited from her mother. Brock immediately silenced, but pulled out a minirecorder and set it up near her.

"It's been eighty four years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was."


	3. A Lucky Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything in italics is essentially Caroline’s voice over, contributing to the story 
> 
> I try to mention certain luxury brands and designers but at this point in time only Hermès, Luis Vuitton, and Chanel existed out of the big names we know today

April 10, 1912

The entire reputation of the new ship was overdone, Miranda had decided. Her burgundy Renault Touring Car pulled onto the docks and through the sea of people, wavers and passengers alike trying to get through. The atmosphere itself was one of excitment and general giddiness.

Miranda, in her stunning white and purple outfit and silvery white hair hidden under a big feathered hat, let herself out of the car to take in the such praised ship. She looked at it with cool appriasal.

It was a mountain of buff colored funnels standing against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen moved across the deck, white starline officials barked orders to people and cars.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," she said. "It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania."

The door to a following car opened and out stepped another man, older, and much shorter than Miranda herself, who went by the name of Irv Ravitz, the chairman for Elias-Clarke publishing company.

"You can be blase about some things, Miranda, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than the Mauretania, and far more luxurious."

He turned to the rest of their group, which included Miranda's eleven year old twin daughters, her ladies maid, Emily, Christian Thompson, acting in as Irv's Valet, and the fashion director for Runway magazine, Nigel Kipling.

"Your boss is far too difficult to impress, Nigel," Mr. Ravitz chuckled, and Nigel laughed appropriately.

"So this is the ship they say is unsinkable?" Nigel asked, looking at the iron leviathan.

"It is unsinkable!" Mr. Ravitz spouted. "God himself could not sink this ship."

From behind them, a white star line porter scurried towards them, harried by last minute loading.

"Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way--"

Irv Ravitz nonchantly slipped the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilated, for five pounds was a monster tip.

"I put my faith in you good sir, now kindly see my man," he gestured to Christian.

"Right, all the trunks from this car here, twelve from here, and the safe, all to go to the parlor suite, rooms B-52, 54, and 56," Christian ordered.

"We'd better hurry, everyone. This way ladies," Irv directed Miranda and her daughters towards the first class gangway. Miranda led, followed by Emily, who carried several bags of Miranda's all too delicate to be handled by baggage handlers.

They passed several people waving tearful goodbyes. They weaved between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers mostly of second class and steerage. Most of the first class passengers avoided the smelly press of the dockside crowed and used an elevated boarding bridge twenty feet above where they stood.

Miranda looked up to the hull as Titanic loomed over them, a great iron wall. They entered and the were swallowed up.

...

_Caroline had only begun her mother's story. "It was the ship of dreams, to my sister and I, and everyone else. To my mother, it was a slave ship, taking her back to America in chains. Outwardly, she was everything a proper upperclass lady should be. Inside, she was screaming."_

...

Inside a nearby pub, the steamer's whistle echoed so loud, it might as well have breezed across all of Southampton. A young woman, Andrea Sachs, sat inside the pub accompanied by a good friend by the name of Lily. They were playing a risky game of poker, as their opponents had bet their tickets to the luxurious liner outside.

Lily sat nervously, the other woman didn't even seem shaken up.

"Hit me again, Sven," she nodded to the Swedish man. She took the card, slipped into her hand. Her eyes gave nothing away. Lily shook her head and licked her lips nervously, denying a card.

The final whistle from Titanic blows again, one last warning.

"Moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change, Lily?" she asks.

Lily throws her cards down, so do the Swedes. She had nothing, the best was two pair from one of the Swedes. Andy held her cards close, then turned to Lily.

"I'm sorry Lil," she said.

"What, sorry? What you got? Andy you lost all our money!"

"Sorry, Lily, you're not gonna see your mama again for a long time," she paused, an evil smirk across her lips. She slapped her cards against the table excitedly.

"'Cause you're goin' to American!! Full house boys!" Andy cheered.

Lily stood up abruptly, grabbing the money and kissing it before helping Andy rake it into a mail sack along with the tickets.

"We're going to America! We're going home!" they chorused together and danced around.

"No, mate," the pubkeeper interrupted them. "Titanic go to America, in five minutes."

"Oh shit, come on, Lil," Andy yanked her friend by the arm and they high taled it out of there.

"We're ridin' high style now! We're practically goddamned royalty!" Andy laughed as they booked it through the crowd and across the length of the dock to the right boarding area.

"You're crazy!" Lily huffed. "But I told you, I'm goin' to American to be a millionaire!"

They sprinted to the terminal, coming to a dead stop at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above where they stood. It was monstrous.

They approached the gangway at E deck just as one of the officers is detaching it from the top. It hovered in front of the door.

"Wait!" Andy called. "We're passengers!"

Frantically, flushed and panting, she waved the tickets at him.

"Have you been through the inspection cue?" he asked the pair.

"Of course," Andy answered. "Anyway, we don't have any lice, we're Americans. Both of us."

The officer seemed testy, but let them in just as the door shut behind them, locking everyone on board until they reached New York.

Andy gripped Lily's arm tightly as they crashed through the hallways with pure joy, grinning from ear to ear and whooping with victory.

"We're the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!" Andy shouted.

They reached the top deck just as the mooring lines were dropped in the water. A cheer went up in the pier as seven tug boats pulled Titanic away from the quay.

Both Andy and Lily began waving frantically to the crowd on the dock.

"You know somebody?" Lily asked.

"Of course not. That's not the point." Andy kept going, kept waving. She was unable to stop grinning, feeling the exhilaration of the moment. The entire thing was unbelievable.

Once they had pulled away from the docks in Southampton, and the waving and cheering had ceased, Andy and Lily retreated back down to the third class decks to find their room.

The corridors were narrow, and almost looked like something out of a college dorm. They passed several emigrants studying signs over doors and looking up words in their phrase books. Eventually though, they did find their berth. It was a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks and exposed pipes overhead. It would do.

The other two passengers were already there, two men, no doubt relatives of the swedish poker players in the pub.

Andy threw her bag down on one of the open bunks, Lily took the other.

The two Swedish passengers turned to each other.

"Where is Sven?"


	4. Ode To Titanic

Miranda wasn't fond of the colors in the so called 'Millionaire Suite'. It comprised of two bedrooms, a bath, wardrobe room, and a large sitting room. In addition there was a private fifty foot promenade deck outside.

 

Miranda was rich, yes, and she was accustomed to nice things. However, this was too much. It looked like something her rival, Jaqueline Follet would jump at. 

 

Miranda would like to think that she was modest about her money. But never now should she be cautious about it, now that Irv Ravitz was clawing at her throat to get rid of her. Was the magazine really worth all this to Miranda? Maybe a year ago she would have said yes. Hell, maybe even one month ago. But spending quite a bit of time in London had opened her eyes to the unhappiness of the job. 

 

She was so heavily criticized, for a woman didn't work. But Miranda couldn't fathom the idea of having anyone else in her position. No one could do what she does, and that was the truth. Her icy personality and ambition had gotten her here. Yet, on this ship, she was consequently being targeted for the same things that got her there.

 

There were other things in factor too. Her unhappy marriage that lay in waiting for her in New York only stirred the negativity, and Miranda's only concern was for her daughters.

 

At that moment, Caroline and Cassidy Priestly skipped into the room, observing mockups that lay around tables in the sitting room. Miranda watched them carefully.

 

"That Greece shoot certainly was a waste of money," Irv muttered from the Promenade deck. Miranda imagined he must think she couldn't hear him out there. Irritation boiled around inside her.

 

"I'm throwing the autumn jackets out, but I think I'll pull up the Sedona shoot," Miranda said, loud enough to catch his attention. She picked up The Book, the only thing she could control on this ship.

 

"Must be some lousy jackets," Irv commented. 

 

Nigel swooped in at that particular time, relieving Miranda.

 

"It won't amount to a thing, Irv, trust me. At least they were cheap," he smiled attemptingly and raised a glass of champagne before nodding his head subtly to Miranda, because the thing about the autumn jackets, is that they weren't cheap. Perhaps it would teach Irv not to play the rich card all the time.

 

A porter entered the open door to the suite, rolling in a private safe, belonging to Irv of course.

 

"Ah, put that in the wardrobe," the chairman instructed.

 

Miranda turned and clutched The Book close to her chest before entering the bedroom. She set it gracefully on the dresser near the canopy bed. Her maid, Emily, was already in there hanging up some of her evening gowns.

 

Miranda was glad to have the younger woman there. Well, it meant at least two people were on her side.

 

...

 

_"In Cherbourg, a woman came aboard named Margaret Brown, but we all called her Molly. History would call her the Unksinkable Molly Brown. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called 'new money'. By the next afternoon, we had made our final stop and we were steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing out ahead of us but ocean."_

 

...

 

In the early afternoon, the ship seemed to glow with a warm creamy light.

 

Andy and Lily had wandered across the deck and found their way to the curved railing of the bow. Andy leaned over cautiously, watching as the water broke into a hard shaped V that would trail behind the ship. The prow cut the surface like a knife, throwing up sheets of water.

 

There was a low grumbling from below, and the ship seemed to feel even more powerful under Andy's tight grip.

 

"Hey Lil, I think they're putting the engines to full use," she grinned. Her friend said nothing, but leaned over the railing as well in awe. They were a tower over the sea.

 

"Hey," Andy pointed to something popping up fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. Two dolphins appeared, jumping for sheer joy and exultation of motion. Andy's grin got wider. The animals jumped clear out of the water now and dove back in, crisscrossing in front of the bow.

 

Lily looked up and forward to the open ocean, staring into sunsparkles.

 

"I can see the Statue of Liberty already. Very small of course," she pinched her thumb and index finger together as if to fit a mini Lady Liberty between them. Andy laughed in response before propping herself up against the railing and lifting both hands.

 

"I'm the King of the World!" she shouted and pumped her fists in the air triumphantly. Lily joined in as well, and the friends began cheering and whooping excitedly, not caring if anyone was watching them or judging them. They were on the most magnificent ship of all time in all her beauty, black and severe in her majesty.

 

...

 

"She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history," Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of White Star Line regaled during luncheon that same day.

 

He sat and ate lunch in the First Class Palm Court with the company of one Thomas Andrews, Molly Brown, Nigel Kipling, Irv Ravitz, and Miranda Priestly. Ismay continued.

 

"--and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up."

 

Miranda watched the reaction of Mr. Andrews across from her. She could tell he disliked the attention.

 

"Well," he said. "I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is." He knocked twice on the table. "Willed into solid reality."

 

The waiter came around shortly, asking for orders.

 

"I'll have the lamb. Rare, with very little mint sauce," Miranda ordered, hoping they would cook it properly. She knew Irv had been irritated this afternoon, and she was hyper aware of everything she was doing, especially because Molly Brown seemed particularly interested in the magazine and for the entirety of the luncheon had been watching the dynamic between Nigel, Irv, and Miranda.

 

Molly Brown turned her attention away from the editor.

 

"Hey, uh. Who came up with the name Titanic? Was it you, Bruce?"

 

"Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size mean stability, luxury, and most of all strength."

 

"Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay?" Miranda interrupted. "His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you."

 

Across the table, Andrews chocked on a breadstick attempting to suppress laughter and Molly nodded her head.

 

Irv leaned in. "Not now, Miranda."

 

"Excuse me," the editor announced as she rose from the table and stalked away. She didn't look back to see Irv Ravitz's mortified face.

 

"I do apologize, Mr. Ismay," he said.

 

"She's a pistol, Irv, hope you can handle her," Molly retorted. Irv Ravitz feigned unconcern.

 

"Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on, won't I Mrs. Brown?"

 

...

 

Titanic's wake spread out behind the ship and to the horizon. Andy sat on a bench with her knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketch pad, and the only thing of worth to her. With conte crayon she drew rapidly, using sure strokes. An emigrant from manchester named Cartmell and his three year old daugher Cora stood on the lower rung of the rail. She leaned back against his beer barel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.

 

The sketch in front of Andy captured them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. Andy was good. Really good. Lily took a glance over her shoulder and nodded in approval.

 

A youngish man next to them, scowling, watched as a crew member came by walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a black french bulldog, was what Andy thought one of the ugliest creatures on the planet.

 

"That's typical," the young man spouted in an Irish accent. "First class dogs come down here to take a shit."

 

Andy nodded. "Let's us know where we rank in the scheme of things."

 

"Like we could forget." The irishman stuck out his hand. "I'm Doug, nice to meet you."

 

Andy shook it and introduced herself and Lily as well. The three all nodded at one another.

 

Andy then took a break from her drawing and began people watching. Her eyes swooped across the deck and up above, past the great steam pillars, and back down again. She settled on the sudden appearance of a woman on the deck above. Elegant, with silvery hair that fell in a swoop over her forehead, wearing a long yellow dress and white gloves. She was beautiful, and she stared at the water.

 

Andy was riveted by her. She looked like some figure from a romantic novel, sad and isolated.

 

At the same time, Lily tapped Doug in the arm and pointed to Andy's set gaze. They chuckled to themselves.

 

The woman turned suddenly, and looked right at Andy. She had been caught staring, but she doesn't break away. The woman does, but then looks back. Their eyes meet across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.

 

Someone came up behind the woman and gently touched her arm. It was a bald man with glasses, and Andy's eyebrows twitched. The woman barely nodded before following him away. Andy only stared after her.

 

"Forget it," Doug started. "You'd as like have angels fly out o'yer arse as to get next to the likes o' her."


	5. You Jump, I Jump

_"My mother seemed as if she had already lived her entire life, and was now just watching it. As a young thing, I remember the blurs of social gatherings. It was an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. They never chattered about anything other than the expansion of the magazine. I imagine my mother felt trapped. They were replacing her, it was inevitable, and Irv thought she didn't know. But knowing didn't make a difference. It's like they forced her back to the edge of a great precipice, with no one to pull her back. No one who cared, or even noticed."_

...

The Dragon Lady sprinted across the B deck promenade. It was chilly outside, but she didn't care. She couldn't seem to care about anything. She was clearly disheveled, hair flying.

Miranda wanted to cry, she wanted to break, but something wouldn't let her. She wasn't upset, just angry, so angry. And emotions were flying through her body that she didn't understand. Hatred, desperation. Everything she felt now displayed on her face, and she couldn't care at the fact that she was putting on a display in public. It was cold, there were few out tonight on deck.

She kept running, as fast as her heels and dress would let her until she reached the stern.

She paused at the flagpole, nearly clinging to it, before slowly approaching the railing, staring out at the black water beyond. All thoughts beyond the emotions she was currently feeling faded, everything ceased to exist except the want to get out. No, the need to get out.

Miranda's chest ached. It would be simple, so simple to disappear. There was nothing left, not in the magazine, not in anything.

She began to climb over the railing, having to hitch her long dress way up. The climbing was clumsy. Moving methodically she turned her body and stepped with her heels onto the white painted gunwale, her back to the railing, and facing toward the blackness.

Sixty feet below her, the massive propellers churned the Atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trailed off as far as you could see.

Beneath her feet were the huge bold letters of the name 'Titanic'.

It was all so easy to do this, really. But the girls, it was so unfair to the girls. Miranda gripped the railing tighter. They were on the ship, with her, and they were the only constant, the only thing Miranda could bare to look at on this godforsaken vessel. It wasn't aseasy or simple as she would have liked.

Miranda's breath hitched, and she leaned out, her arms straightening. She looked down hypnotized into the vortex below her. The wind from the ship's movement lifted her hair and dress. The only sound she could really focus on was the rush of the water below and the snap of the big Union Jack right above her.

"Don't do it," came a strong, feminine voice from behind, startling the editor. Her head whipped around and it took a second for her eyes to focus. It was a woman alright, a lot younger, and clearly poorer.

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Miranda huffed.

"Take my hand. I'll pull you back in," the younger woman offered, extending her arm.

"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go."

The younger of the two held up her cigarette butt and gestured to the ocean, asking permission of sorts to throw it over. Really, it was an excuse to get closer. She stuffed her hands in her coat pockets afterward.

"No you won't," she accused casually. Miranda was taken aback.

"What do you mean no I won't? Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me."

The younger woman shrugged. "Well, you would have done it already."

Miranda was impossibly confused now. Her eyes were watery from the wind, or so she liked to pretend, and she couldn't see her very well. She wiped her face with one hand, almost losing her balance.

"You're distracting me, go away," Miranda ordered, hoping, praying it would be enough.

"I can't. I'm involved now. If you let go, I have to jump in after you," the other woman admitted, and soon she began unbuttoning her coat in the chilly air.

"Don't be absurd," Miranda scoffed. "You'll be killed."

The jacket was tossed to the side.

"I'm a good swimmer."

Now she started unlacing her shoes.

"The fall alone would kill you."

"It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't. To be honest, I'm a lot more concerned about that water being so cold."

Miranda took a glance down. The reality factor of what she was doing finally set in.

"How cold?" she asked.

"Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over."

The shoes were kicked to the side, messily, near the jacket.

"Ever been to Ohio?" the younger woman asked.

"No."

"Well they have some of the coldest winters around, and I grew up there, near Cincinnati. Once when I was a kid me and my father were ice-fishing out on Lake Isabella--ice fishing's where you chop a hole in the--"

"I know what ice fishing is!" Miranda snapped, recalling a certain memory where one of her stylists quit the magazine for an ice fishing business three days before a cover shoot.

"Sorry," the younger woman replied. "You just look like kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I fell through some thin ice and I'm tellin' ya, water that cold--like right down there--it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can't breath, you can't think; least not about anything but the pain." She shrugged. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the railing and let me off the hook here."

Miranda's mouth twitched until she let out one of those disbelieving laughs.

"You're crazy," she said.

"That's what everybody says, but with all due respect, Miss, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship here." She slid closer, carefully like Miranda was some kind of spooked horse. "C'mon. You don't want to do this. Give me your hand."

Miranda stared at her for a long time, until finally looking into her eyes and deciding somehow, they filled her universe.

She unfastened one hand from the rail and reached around toward her. The younger woman met the hand and took it in her own, firmly. She was surprisingly warm.

"I'm Andy Sachs."

"Miranda Priestly."

Andy smiled. "Sounds lavish, you might have to write it down for me."

Miranda feigned a smile and started to turn on the railing. She had decided to live, the realization of the height terrifying. She shifted her footing and was now facing the ship. As she began to step over, her dress got in the way, and a foot slipped off the edge of the deck.

She plunged, letting out a piercing shriek. Andy, who was gripping her hand, was jerked toward the railing. However, she didn't let go. Miranda's feet flailed, and she managed to grab a lower rail with her free hand.

"HELP! HELP!!"

"I've got you," Andy tried to reassure her. "I won't let you go."

Andy held her with all her strength, bracing herself on the railing with her other hand. Miranda, on the other side, tried to find some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Andy tried to lift her over, but the evening shoes and gown made it impossible and she slipped again. Another shriek was released.

Andy moved to awkwardly clutch Miranda by whatever she could get a grip on as she flailed, before hauling her over the railing. She pulled Miranda closer to her to get a better hold, and the two fell together on the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that she wound up slightly on top of the older woman.

Footsteps sounded and three men approached the pair.

"Here, what's all this?" one asked. Andy quickly backed up and off of Miranda, revealing her to be disheveled and panting. Her dress was torn, and the hem was pushed up to her knees, showing one ripped stocking. The officer looked at the shaggy steerage woman with her jacket and shoes off, then back to the first class lady clearly in distress. He was beginning to draw conclusions.

"You stand back!" he barked at Andy. "And don't move an inch!"

The officer then whipped around to the other two seamen. "Fetch the Master at Arms."

...

Within ten minutes, handcuffs were being clasped around Andy's wrists by the burly Master at Arms, the closest thing to a cop on board, and several important people from first class were in present company. Irv Ravitz being one of them, furious. Christian Thompson behind him, and another man, with coats over their black ties and evening tails. The other man was Colonel Archibald Gracie, a mustached blowhard who still had his brandy snifter. He offered it to a cold Miranda, but she waved it away. Irv however, was more concerned with Andy.

"What made you think you could put your hands on the editor-in-chief of Runway?! Look at me, you filth! What did you think you were doing?"

"Irv, stop. It was an accident," Miranda growled in a low, silky voice.

"An accident?" she short man asked.

"It was, stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped," she explained. She dared a glance at Andy, getting eye contact. "I was leaning far over, to see the-ah-um-propellers, and I slipped, and I would have gone overboard, but Miss Sachs here saved me and almost went over herself."

The others looked skeptical, and Andy thought her excuse might have sounded out of character to them, but they ended up shaking their heads.

"She wanted to see the propellers," Irv muttered.

"Like I said, women and machinery do not mix," the Colonel spoke.

The Master at Arms spun Andy around.

"Was that the way of it?" he asked.

Andy took a quick look at Miranda, who was practically begging with her eyes for her not to say what really happened. Andy looked back to the Master at Arms.

"Uh huh. That was pretty much it." She looked back to Miranda. Now they had a secret together.

"Well!" Colonel Gracie began. "The girl's a hero then. Good for you, well done. So it's all's well and back to our brandy, eh?"

The cuffs were released and Andy's hands were free again. She rubbed her wrists where small marks were left. Irv turned to Miranda.

"Best get back inside, I believe Emily left The Book," he told her, not giving a second thought to Andy.

The Colonel though, cleared his throat and asked lowly, "Ah, perhaps a little something for the girl?"

Irv stopped, turned around and nodded. "Right. Mr. Thompson, I think a twenty should do it."

Miranda quickly intervened. "Is that the going rate for saving your Queen of Fashion?"

Irv frowned. "Miranda is displeased. Mmm, what to do?" He thought for a long moment, then decided to take in the look Andy presented. A steerage ruffian, unwashed and ill-mannered.

"I know," he finally said, and stepped closer to Andy. "Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to regale our group with your heroic tale."

Andy shot a look straight at Miranda.

"Sure. Count me in."

"Good. It's settled then."

The men turned and took Miranda with them. Andy heard Irv whisper to The Colonel, "This should be interesting," followed by a grunt of agreement.

When the last of them, Christian turned, Andy whistled for him.

"Can I, uh, bum a smoke?" she asked, trying to sound casual. Christian smoothly drew out a silver cigarette case from his jacket and snapped it open. Andy took one, then another, popping it behind her ear for later. Christian then lit the one in her mouth.

"You'll want to tie those," he said, gesturing to Andy's shoelaces.

"Interesting how she slipped so suddenly, and you still had time to remove your jacket and your shoes." His expression was bland, but eyes cold.

Andy couldn't respond, and only watched as he turned away to join his group.


	6. Sketches And Stories

Miranda undressed for bed that night, and now sat at the edge of her bed, Caroline and Cassidy reciting their events from the day. She was glad for her twins distraction, it would be a much more pleasant end to the night than what could have happened.

A knock on the door brought her out of her trance and she quickly directed the girls to their own room so she could confront whoever was at the door.

She fetched a cover robe and opened the stateroom door to Irv Ravitz, who no doubt just finished his cigars and brandy.

"I know you've been upset, Miranda. I don't pretend to know why." From behind his back he pulled out a large black velvet jewel case. She took it from him, numbly.

"I intended to save this for when we added in the Holt collection next week. But I thought tonight, it might reassure you that this is the best issue yet."

Miranda slowly opened the box. Inside was a necklace, a deep blue heart shape in all its glory. It was huge, malevolently glittering with an infinity of scalpel-like inner reflections.

How could Miranda approve this to go in the magazine?

"My God. Is it a--"

"Diamond? Yes it is. Fifty six carats to be exact."

She took it out of the box and turned it over in her hands multiple times. So this was the big surprise for Jacqueline when she became editor-in-chief. Yet Irv had the audacity to present the thing to Miranda. She would never let the diamond go into the issue.

"It was worn by Louis the Sixteenth. They call it Le Coeur de la Mer, the-"

"Heart of the Ocean. Irv, it's overwhelming." 

"It will liven the pages of your magazine. It is for your magazine. There's nothing this company couldn't give you for Runway. There's nothing I'd deny you, if you wouldn't deny me. Now give this diamond a chance, Miranda."

He left then, and Miranda watched as the diamond went with him. It was a cold stone, a heart of ice. Some would say it was fitting for the editor, but it was only a reflection of what Irv planned to do with her. 

Miranda moved then, and thought for a moment that out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caroline peeking into the bedroom door.

...

The next day, down below decks was the social center of steerage life. It was stark in comparison to the opulence of first class, but it was a loud, boisterous place. Several mothers sat with babies, kids ran around benches yelling in several languages and being scolded in several more. There were old women yelling, men playing chess, girls doing needlepoint and reading dime novels. There was even an upright piano, and Doug was noodling around on it.

Three boys, shrieking and shouting, were scrambling around chasing a rat under the benches, trying to whomp it with a shoe and causing general havoc.

Andy was playing with five year old Cora Cartmell, drawing funny faces together in her sketchbook. Next to her, Lily struggled to get a conversation going with a Norwegian girl, Helga Dahl.

"Some English?" she asked. Helga shook her head.

"No, no. Norwegian. Only." Suddenly Helga's eye was caught by something. Lily glanced up, and soon Andy, curious, followed her gaze to see Miranda coming toward them.

All activity in the room stopped and a hush fell over everyone.

The editor herself began to feel self conscious as she crossed the room with the steerage passengers staring at her. Some looked at the queen with resentment, others with awe. She spotted Andy and gave a faint smile before walking straight to her. Andy rose to meet the Dragon, smiling.

"Hello, Andy."

Behind her, Lily and Doug were floored.

"Hello again," Andy greeted.

"Could I speak to you in private?"

"Uh, yes. Of course. After you." 

Andy motioned her ahead, and she followed. She took a glance back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, and walked out with Miranda, leaving the room in a stunned silence.

Outside, they walked next to each other along the first class boat deck. Many people were outside reading and talking in steamer chairs, some of whom glanced curiously at the mismatched couple. Andy felt out of place in her rough clothes. They were both awkward, for different reasons.

"Is Andy your actual name by the way?" Miranda spoke first.

"It's Andrea, but everyone calls me Andy."

There was another awkward silence.

"Miss Sachs, I--"

"Andy."

"Andrea, I feel like such an idiot. It took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you."

"Well," Andy shrugged. "Here you are."

"Here I am. I want to thank you for what you did. Not just for-for pulling me back. But for your discretion."

"You're welcome, Miranda."

"Look, I know what you must be thinking! Poor little rich woman. What does she know about misery?"

Andy quickly shook her head. 

"No," she said. "That's not what I was thinking at all. What I was thinking was, what could have happened to hurt this woman so much she thought she had no way out."

A clump of emotions found their way back into Miranda's head.

"Well," she began and rushed to the side of the deck. "It was everything. It was them, my whole world, and everything in it."

She spoke fast.

"I just had to get away, just run and run and run, and then I was at the back rail and there was no more ship. Even Titanic wasn't big enough. Not enough to get away from them. And before I'd really thought about it, I was over the rail. I was so furious. I'll show them. They'll be sorry!"

"Uh huh," Andy nodded. "They'll be sorry. 'Course you'll be dead."

Miranda lowered her head.

"Oh God, I am such an utter fool," she murmured.

"That penguin last night, is he one of them?"

"Penguin? Oh, Irv. He is them."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

Miranda almost gagged.

"Worse I'm afraid, he's my boss."

"God!"

The two laughed together, and Miranda noticed a steward passing that scowled at Andy. She only glared him away.

"So you feel like you're stuck on a train because you hate your boss and he has a tight leash on you."

"More than that, he's replacing me."

Andy's eyebrows raised.

"So quit," Andy offered.

"If only it were that simple," Miranda laughed.

"It is that simple."

"Oh, Andrea, please don't judge me until you've seen my world."

"Well, I guess I will tonight."

Miranda had nothing to say, and she felt awkward yet again, for she always knew what to say. Looking for another topic, she indicated to the sketchbook Andy carried under her arm.

"What's this?" she grabbed the book and began opening it. "What are you, an artist or something?"

They moved across to the other side of the deck where they sat on a chair. Miranda flipped through the drawings. Each one an expressive little bit of humanity: an old woman's hands, a sleeping man, a father and daughter at the rail. The faces were luminous and alive. Her book was a celebration of the human condition.

"These are good. They're really good actually," Miranda admitted.

"Well, they didn't think too much of 'em in ol' Paree."

Upon coming to a series of nudes, Miranda blushed. "Well, well."

She was transfixed by the languid beauty that was created. The nudes were soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They felt more like portraits than studies of the human form, almost uncomfortably intimate. She hid the book as a few strollers went by.

"And these were drawn from life?" Miranda asked.

"Yup. That's one of the great things about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off."

Miranda studied one drawing in particular, the girl was posed in half sunlight, half shadow. Her eyes were at her chin, one furled and one open like a glower, languid and graceful. These sketches were even better than some of the magazine mockups Miranda had to oversee.

"You liked this woman. You used her several times."

"She had beautiful hands," Andy said. Miranda smiled.

"I think you must have had a love affair with her."

"No, no! Just with her hands," Andy laughed.

Miranda closed the sketchbook.

"You have a gift, Andrea. You do. You see people."

"I see you." 

There it was, that piercing gaze again.

"And?"

"You wouldn't have jumped."

...

"So you've not yet lit the last four boilers then?" Bruce Ismay noted that afternoon in the reception room.

"No," Captain Smith answered. "But we're making excellent time."

"Captain," Ismay started impatiently. "the press knows the size of Titanic, now let them marvel at her speed too. We must give them something new to print. And the maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!"

"I prefer not to push the engines until they've been properly run in."

"Of course I leave it to your good offices to decide what's best. But what a glorious end to your last crossing if we get into New York Tuesday night and surprise them all," Ismay slapped his hand on the table. "Retire with a bag, eh, E.J?"

...

"Well, then logging got to be too much like work, so I went down to Los Angeles to the pier in Santa Monica. That's a swell place, they even have a roller coaster. I sketched portraits there for ten cents a piece. When it got cold, I decided to go to Paris and see what the real artists were doing," Andy recalled details of her past in the late afternoon sun. They had been talking for hours, not paying attention to the time.

"Why can't I be like you, Andrea?" Miranda looked out to the dusk sky. "Just head out for the horizon whenever I feel like it."

The editor turned suddenly to the younger woman.

"Say we'll go there, sometime, to that pier, even if we only ever just talk about it."

Andy nodded at her and grinned. "Alright, we're going. We'll drink cheap beer and the twins can ride the rollercoaster until they throw up and we'll ride horses on the beach, right in the surf. But you have to ride like a real cowboy, none of that side saddle stuff."

Miranda laughed in disbelief. "You mean one leg on each side? Can you teach me?”

"Sure," Andy said. "If you like."

Miranda smiled a little.

"Teach me to ride like a man."

"And chew tobacco like a man."

"And-and spit like a man!" Miranda huffed in a low voice.

"They didn't teach you that in finishing school?" Andy asked jokingly.

"No."

Andy laughed and tugged her arm a little.

"C'mon I'll show you," she said and Miranda shook her head, however she didn't resist Andy's pull on her elbow.

"Andrea, no. No, Andrea, I couldn't possibly--" Miranda was pulled to the very edge of the deck were they leaned on the wall over the side of the ship. Andy made a guttural sound before spitting overboard into the water. She smiled at the editor.

"Your turn."

Miranda screwed up her mouth before spitting a pathetic little bit of foam which mostly ran down her chin before falling off into the water.

"That was pitiful!" Andy laughed. "Here, like this, you hawk it down, HHHNNNK! Then roll it on your tongue, up to the front, like this, then a big breath and PHLOOOW!! You see the range on that thing?"

Miranda went through the steps. She hawked it down, Andy coaching her the hole time while also doing it herself. Miranda let it fly, and so did Andy. Two comets of gob flew out over the water.

"That was great!" Andy complimented her. Miranda turned, amusement plastered on her face until suddenly she blanched. Andy noticed this and turned around.

Behind them stood The Countess of Rothes, Irv Ravitz, Molly Brown, and Nigel Kipling. Miranda instantly became composed.

"May I introduce Andrea Sachs," Miranda quavered.

From behind the adults, two redheaded girls popped out. They were curious as well. They watched with bright eyes as Miranda began the introductions.

...

_"The others were gracious and curious about the woman who'd saved my mother's life. But Mr. Ravitz looked at her like an insect. A dangerous insect which must be squashed quickly."_

...

"Well, Andrea, it sounds like you're a good person to have around in a sticky spot--" Molly Brown started, but was interrupted by the dinner bugle. The group jumped.

"Why do they always insist on announcing dinner like a damn cavalry charge?" Molly asked. 

Miranda laughed politely and began moving towards the twins, grabbing one hand from each of them. Over her shoulder she called, "See you at dinner, Andrea."

Nigel stayed behind and took a sweeping glance over Andy's outfit.

"Do you have the slightest comprehension of what you're doing?" he asked Andy.

She shook her head and laughed. "Not really."

"Well, you're about to go into the snakepit. I hope you're ready. What are you planning to wear?"

Andy looked down. "Mr. Ravitz invited me to dinner, he knows what I look like."

Nigel raised his eyebrows. "Do you?"

Andy shrugged at her raggedy outfit. Nigel gestured for her to follow him.

"I figured."


	7. Dinner With Andrea

Andy stood awkwardly in Nigel Kipling's stateroom while he brought out several dinner outfits trying to find something suitable for her. There were several dresses strewn all over the place, Nigel himself seemed to be having a fine time.

Andrea was finally dressed in a beautiful long gown, showing off her creamy shoulders and fine skin.

"My, my, my, I knew this would work. A little crisco and some fishing line and you shine up like a new penny," Nigel said and twirled her around like she was some kind of little project.

She was released to head down to dinner, and Andy slipped out of the stateroom and down the hallway to the first class dining room. By Edwardian standards she looked absolutely stunning, right down to her fairly new and fairly expensive Chanel heels.

A steward bowed smartly for her and opened the door to the first class entrance.

"Good evening, Madame," he said.

Andy played the role smoothly, and nodded with just the right degree of disdain.

She stepped in and her breath was taken away by the splendor spread out before her. Overhead was an enormous glass dome with a crystal chandelier at its center. Sweeping down six stories was the First Class Grand Staircase.

And the people: the women in their floor length dresses, elaborate hairstyles and abundant jewelry. The gentleman in evening dress, standing with one hand at the small of the back, talking quietly.

Andy descended to A deck. Several of the other women nodded a perfunctory greeting. She nodded back, keeping it simple, and feeling like a spy.

She turned for a moment and noticed Nigel and Mr. Ravitz coming down the stairs, talking quietly about another magazine. Nigel gave a small nod at his handiwork, Irv Ravitz didn't even recognize her, just smiled. 

Andy observed the other men, watching closely to how they held their arms out for the ladies, and taking down notes in her head for later perhaps. She turned her attention to a few feet away where Nigel approached another woman wearing a gorgeous creamed gown and elbow length white gloves.

"There is The Countess," he said and brought her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. Andy barely had time to be amused, for her eye caught on Miranda at the top of the stairs.

She was a vision in gray and black, her low-cut dress showing off her neck and shoulders, and arms covered in jewelry. Andy was hypnotized by her beauty.

Andy thought it would be comedic to imitate the gentleman's stance, and she placed one hand behind her back, then taking a jewelried hand and kissing the back of her fingers. Miranda flushed and gave a small smile, beaming noticeably. She also couldn't take her eyes off of Andy.

"I saw that in a nickelodean once and I always wanted to do it," Andy laughed and held out her arm for Miranda to take. She nearly hesitated, but took the younger woman's arm firmly and together they approached Mr. Ravitz and Nigel.

"Irv, surely you remember Miss Sachs," Miranda introduced. Irv was clearly caught off guard.

"Sachs! I didn't even recognize you," the small man observed her. "It's amazing, you could almost pass for a lady."

Andy smiled weakly. "Almost," she said.

The descended down to the reception room on D deck, nearing dinner. Once Mr. Ravitz broke away from the group, Nigel approached the pair of women.

"Nothin' to it is there, Six?" Nigel asked, grinning at his own nickname for the young girl that came about while trying on dresses.

"Now remember," Nigel said, "They love money, so just act like you own a gold mine and you're in the club."

Miranda took the time then to lean in close to Andy and point out all the notables.

"There's the Countess of Rothes. And that's John Jacob Astor--the richest man on the ship. His little wifey there, Madeleine is your age and in a delicate condition. See how she's trying to hide it."

Andy noticed the round belly beneath her beaded dress.

"Quite the scandal," Miranda continued, waving at another couple. And over there, that's Sir Cosmo and Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon. She designs naughty lingerie, among her many talents. I adore putting her work in the magazine from time to time."

They began strolling toward the dining room with everyone else, soon running into the Astor's while going through the ornate double doors.

"J.J, Madeleine, I'd like you to meet Andrea Sachs," Miranda introduced her.

"Good to meet you, Andrea. Are you of the Boston Sachs?"

"No, the Covington Sachs, actually."

"Oh yes," J.J nodded as if he'd heard of them, then looking puzzled. Miranda gently pulled her away to two red headed girls in their own evening gowns.

"And these are my girls, Cassidy and Caroline," Miranda stroked their hair and the two girls looked at Andy with wonder.

"It's nice to meet you both," she took one hand from each girl and kissed their fingers just as she had with Miranda. The girls each laughed before one pulled the other away and they left to join the table. Andy took the time as they approached the table to take in the ballroom, alive and lit by a constellation of chandeliers, full of elegantly dressed people and beautiful music from Wallace Hartley's small orchestra.

...

_"She must have been nervous but she never faltered. They assumed she was one of them. Heiress to a railroad fortune perhaps. New money obviously, but still a member of the club. Mr. Ravitz of course, could always be counted upon."_

...

"Tell us of the accommodations in steerage, Miss Sachs. I hear they're quite good on this ship," Irv began.

Andy was seated opposite of Miranda, who was flanked by Irv and Thomas Andrews. Also at the table were Molly Brown, Bruce Ismay, Colonel Gracie, The Countess, and the Astors.

"The best I've seen, sir. Hardly any rats." A small laughter erupted around the table, and Andy caught Miranda's eye, her signaling for Andy to take her napkin off her plate. She did so, trying her hardest to blend in.

"Miss Sachs is joining us from third class. She was of some assistance to my boss last night," Nigel informed the table.

There were a few whispers around the table, and Andy started to become a little unsure of herself.

"And where exactly do you live, Miss Sachs?" Irv started up again.

"Well, right now my address is the RMS Titanic. After that, I'm on God's good humor," she told the table as a salad was placed in front of her. She shot a nervous glance to Miranda, picking up the fish fork. Miranda prompted her with her eyes, and Andy changed forks. Irv continued on.

"And how is it you have means to travel?"

"I work my way from place to place. Tramp steamers and such. I won my ticket on Titanic here in a lucky hand at poker. A very lucky hand."

Colonel Gracie spoke up. "All life is a game of luck."

Nigel shook his head. "A real man makes his own luck, Archie."

"And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?" Irv went on, ignoring the others.

Next to Andy, a single eyebrow of Nigel's raised and he shot a disapproving glare towards Irv. Andy didn't back down.

"Well, yes, sir, I do. I mean, I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or, who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count."

The others listened, intrigued, and when her speech was over, Nigel said, "Well, said, Andrea," and Colonel Gracie raised his glass agreeing.

Miranda raised her glass next, making direct eye contact with Andy.

"To making it count," she said. The other joined in, murmuring 'to making it count' and all sipping from their crystal glasses of champagne.

Irv backed off, though thoroughly annoyed that Andy had scored a point.

After that the dinner went flawlessly enough, dessert was served and a waiter arrived with cigars in a humidor on a wheeled cart. The men started clipping ends and lighting.

Miranda whispered low to Andy. "Next it'll be brandies in the Smoking Room."

The men at the table rose, Gracie starting. "Well, join me for a brandy, gentlemen?"

"Now they retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on being masters of the universe."

"Staying here with the other ladies, Sachs? You can't join us, now," Colonel Gracie said as Andy rose from the table.

"No thanks. I'm heading back," Andy said.

"Probably best. It'll all be designers and clothing, that sort of thing. You wouldn't understand. Good of you to come," Irv Ravitz told her, smiling wickedly before leaving with the other men.

Andy approached Miranda at the table, who was still sitting down.

"Andrea, must you go?" she asked.

"Time for me to go row with the other slaves," she laughed and took Miranda's hand once again, kissing it ever so gently, and leaving a folded piece of paper into her hand.

Miranda watched as the younger woman walked away through the enormous room. She then surreptitiously opened the note below the table level so the others couldn't see. It read: 'Make it count. Meet me at the clock'.

She stood up from the table abruptly, next to her, Lady Duff-Gordon asked if she was quite okay.

"Oh yes. But I think I'll work on The Book. You know how busy I still am with the magazine," Miranda told her. The designer seemed to understand, and let Miranda go wordlessly.

The editor left the dining room in a hurry, walking back up the stairs and crossing the A deck foyer, spotting Andy at the landing above. She had her back to her, and looked to be studying the ornate clock with its carved figures of Honor and Glory. It softly striked the hour.

She approached the young woman slowly, up the sweeping staircase. Andy turned around and met her gaze, smiling.

"So, you want to go to a real party?"


	8. A Real Party

A large crowd downstairs in the third class general room howled with lively music, laughter, and raucous carrying on. An ad hoc band was gathered near the upright piano, honking out lively stomping music on a fiddle, accordion, and tambourine. People of all ages were dancing, drinking beer and wine, smoking, laughing, and even brawling.

Doug approached Miranda at one of the tables and handed her a pint of stout. One of her twins, Cassidy, sat next to her, having a fantastic time pretending to arm wrestle with Lily. Meanwhile, Andy was a few feet away dancing with Caroline Priestly, or at least she was trying to, with the girl standing on Andy's feet. As the tune ended, Andy smoothly made her away to the white haired woman at the table.

"I'm gonna dance with your mother now," Andy told the girl, and pointed to Miranda.

The editor stopped clapping and a serious look overcame her as she realized that Andy's hand was stretched out towards her.

"C'mon," she said.

"What?" Miranda was baffled, and completely unprepared.

"Hurry, c'mon," Andy pulled the woman out of her seat.

"Andrea. Andrea, wait," Miranda was now completely facing Andy. "I can't do this."

The younger woman smirked and ignored Miranda's protests.

"We're gonna have to get a little bit closer," Andy pulled the editor nearly against her own body.

Miranda trembled as Andy took her right hand in her left and the other slid down to the small of her back. It was an electrifying moment.

Off to the side, Caroline watched Andy holding her mother. A small frown came across her face. Andy turned to look at her. She smiled and said, "You're still my best girl, Caro." The redhead gave an effortless smile and then scampered off with her twin to play with Cora Cartmell.

"I don't know the steps," Miranda admitted, her cheeks burning.

"Just move with me. Don't think."

The music started and they were off. It was a little awkward at first, but Miranda slowly eased into it. She gave a small grin to Andy as the rhythm got into her steps.

"Wait, stop!" she yelped out. They peeled off to the side and Miranda bent down, pulling off her patent leather Lanvin heels. She flung them to the side, Doug immediately grabbing them. As soon as that was done she grabbed Andy and the pair plunged back into the fray, dancing faster as the music sped up.

The scene was rowdy and rollicking. In the corner, a table was knocked over as a drunk crashed into it, and in the middle of it all, Miranda dancing with Andy in her stocking feet. The steps only got faster and she glistened with light perspiration. A space opened around them, and people watched, clapping as the band played faster and faster.

Andy smiled wider and took both of Miranda's hands in her own before spinning them around in a circle.

"Andrea, no," Miranda pleaded as she began to see everything whirling past her at an alarming speed.

Andy could only laugh, causing Miranda to let out a small squeal followed by more laughter.

The tune ended in a mad rush and Andy stepped away from Miranda in a flourish, allowing her to take a bow. Exhilarated and slightly tipsy, the editor did a graceful ballet ployer, feet turned out perfectly. Everyone laughed and applauded. Miranda was a hit with the steerage folks, who had never had a lady party with them.

They moved to the table, flushed and sweaty. Miranda plucked a cigarette from Lily and took a big drag. She was feeling cocky, and scanned both Lily and the other girl next to her.

Doug approached the group then, a pint for each of them. Miranda chugged hers, showing off. The others stared.

"What? You think a first class woman can't drink?" she scoffed.

Everyone else began dancing again, and Bjorn Gunderson, drunk, crashed hard into Doug, causing him to slosh beer all over Miranda's beautiful gown. She laughed, not caring.

Doug however, lunged, grabbing Bjorn and wheeling him around.

"You stupid bastard!"

Bjorn came around, his fists coming up, but Andy interrupted, pushing them apart.

"Boys, boys! Did I ever tell you the one about the Swede and the Irishman going' to the whorehouse?"

Doug stood there, all piss and vinegar, his chest puffed up. Then he grinned and clapped Bjorn on the shoulder. Miranda butted her way in gracefully at that moment, a devious smirk across her face.

"So, you think you're big tough men? Let's see you do this."

In her stocking feet she assumed a ballet stance, arms raised, going up on point, taking her entire weight on the tips of her toes. She guys gaped at her incredible muscle control. She came back down, her face twisted up in pain. She grabbed one foot, hopping around.

"Oooowww! I haven't done that in years," Miranda sighed and nearly losing her balance.

Andy caught her amidst her fall, and everyone else cracked up.

From the top of the door to the well deck, a few inches parted leaving visible room for a one Christian Thompson to snoop around. He peered through the gap, scanning the crowd until his eyes landed on Andy holding Miranda, both of them laughing.

Christian closed the door.

...

The stars blazed overhead, so bright and clear you could see the Milky Way.

Miranda and Andy walked along the row of lifeboats. The twins laughing and running around the deck, all still giddy from the party. Miranda and Andy were singing a popular song "Come Josephine in my Flying Machine".

"And it's up she goes! Up she goes!

In the air she goes. Where? There she goes!" the two sang together, and then fumbled the words before breaking down and laughing. They had reached the First Class Entrance, but didn't go straight in, not wanting the evening to end. The twins however, were beginning to tire and slipped through the opening to return to their stateroom. As the door swung open, the sound of the ship's orchestra wafted gently. Miranda grabbed onto a davit and leaned back, staring at the cosmos.

"Isn't it magnificent? So grand and endless," she then went to the rail and leaned on it.

"They're such small people, Andrea, my crowd. They think they're giants in God's eye, and I've always seen beyond what people want, past who they are and their needs. I only stand it for my girls, I love my girls so much. But all the others, all of them, they live inside this little tiny champagne bubble, and someday the bubble's going to burst."

Andy leaned on the rail next to her, their hands just barely touching. It was the slightest contact imaginable, but all either one of them could feel was that square inch where skin touched skin.

"You're not one of them. There's been a mistake," Andy said.

"A mistake?"

"Uh huh. You got mailed to the wrong address."

Miranda let out a free laugh.

"I did, didn't I?" She looked up and pointed to the sky suddenly. "Look! A shooting star."

Andy smiled and said, "That was a long one. My father used to say that whenever you saw one, it was a soul going to heaven."

"I like that. Aren't we supposed to wish on it?"

Andy looked at the editor, suddenly finding that they were so very close together. It would be so easy to move another couple of inches, to kiss her. Miranda might have been thinking the same thing.

"What did you wish for?" Andy asked, and Miranda pulled away.

"Something I can't have." She smiled sadly and retreated from the railing, hurrying through the first class entrance.

"Miranda!" Andy called, but the door banged shut and she was gone. Back to her world.


	9. Sunday Prayer

The day was Sunday, April 14, 1912. A bright clear day. Sunlight splashed across the promenade. Miranda and Irv Ravitz ate breakfast alone in silence. The tension was palpable. Emily strolled out from the suite, pouring coffee for them, and then retreating back inside.

"I know what you're going to do with me, Irv," Miranda started. She had been the one to call this meeting.

"And how did you happen across that information?" the chairman asked.

Miranda wordlessly sipped her coffee.

"I've known what was going on for quite some time," she said. "I found a mockup."

"Jacqueline is a lot younger, Miranda, and she does the same thing for a lot less money. I'm a business man, surely you understand. There will be options for you in New York, it's not as if you will be blacklisted."

He was a liar. There were not options.

"No one can do what I do. Including her," Miranda corrected him, her voice low, and scary.

He seemed distressed, and Miranda slipped him a piece of paper.

"What is this?" Irv asked.

"A list. A list of all the models, photographers and designers that were found by me and nurtured by me and have promised that they will follow me when and if I ever choose to leave Runway. So you go, and you take on Jacqueline. I will watch your magazine fall apart, and I won't weep."

He observed the list, scanning the names. His eyebrows pushed together in concern.

"We should have discussed this last night," he told her after finishing.

"I was tired," Miranda lied.

"Yes. Your exertions below decks were no doubt exhausting."

Miranda stiffened.

"I see you had that undertaker of a manservant follow me," she huffed.

"You will never behave like that again, Miranda. Not if you want your last days at Runway to be pleasant. Do you understand?"

"I'm not a clacker behind a clothing rack that you can just command," Miranda defiantly stated. "I am editor-in-chief--"

Irv then exploded, sweeping the breakfast china off the table with a crash. He moved to her in one shocking moment, glowering over her and gripping the sides of her chair so she was trapped.

"Yes! You are! And you work for me! You work for me if only for a few more weeks so you will honor me. You will honor me because you do work beneath me! I will not be made out a fool, Miranda! Is this in any way unclear?"

Miranda refused to shrink back into her chair, but she wasn't about to argue. She shook her head, and Irv backed off, storming back inside and leaving the editor out on the promenade. She saw Emily, frozen, partway through the door bringing the orange juice. She hurried over to help clean, and Miranda's breath got heavy.

"Oh, Emily, we had a little accident," Miranda told her in an attempt to lighten the situation.

...

Around mid morning, Nigel sat in Miranda's stateroom while Emily did her corset. He watched his boss intently, not liking anything he had to say.

"You can't see that girl again, Miranda. It's only going to complicate things further."

"Oh, stop it, Nigel. Irv is going to give you a nosebleed," Miranda scolded him. 

"Miranda, this is not a game! Our situation is precarious. You know the James Holt job is gone!"

"Of course I know it's gone. You remind me of it everyday, because you were supposed to get it."

Nigel stood up now.

"You recommended me for it and then tried to put Jacqueline Follet in the position to save your own job. That job was the only card you had to play, and now it's gone. I'm sorry, Miranda, I don't understand you. Irv wants you out either way. Jacqueline taking over will ensure the survival of the magazine."

Miranda's head snapped up to look at the fashion director. She was hurt and lost, she couldn't believe she was hearing this from one of her most loyal employees.

"How can you put this on my shoulders?" she asked and looked directly at him. She found naked fear in his eyes.

"You once told me during fashion week in Paris, that if one wanted this life, these choices were necessary."

Emily pulled the corset tighter.

...

At the divine church service, Captain Smith led the group in the hymn 'Almighty Father Strong To Save'. Miranda, Nigel, and Irv sang in the middle of the group. Towards the doors, Christian Thompson stood, watching over Miranda. He noticed a commotion at the entry doors.

On the other side, Andy had been halted there by two stewards. She was back in her third class clothes, standing there, hat in hand, looking out of place.

"Look, you, you're not supposed to be in here," one of the stewards said.

"I was just here last night. Don't you remember?" Andy asked and noticed Christian approaching her. "He'll tell you." 

Christian narrowed his eyes at the young woman.

"Mr. Ravitz and Mrs. Priestly continue to be most appreciative of your assistance. They asked me to give you this in gratitude--" he held out two twenty dollar bills, however Andy refused it.

"I don't want money, I--"

"--and also to remind you that you hold a third class ticket and your presence here is no longer appropriate."

Andy spotted Miranda, but the older woman didn't notice her.

"I just need to talk to Miranda for a--"

"Gentleman, please see that Miss Sachs gets back to where she belongs," he held the twenties to the stewards. "And that she stays there."

"Yes sir!" The stewards said and grabbed Andy by her arms, hustling her out.

Miranda did not see her being dragged away.

...

Andy walked with determination. She was followed closely by Lily and Doug. She stopped and quickly climbed the steps to B deck and stepped over the gate separating third from second class.

"She's a goddess amongst mortal men, there's no denyin'. But she's in another world, Andy, forget her. She's closed the door," Doug tried to convince her.

Andy ignored the pleading and moved furtively to the wall below the A-deck promenade. 

It was them, not Miranda.

Andy took a sweeping glance around the deck before nodding at Doug, who shook his head but put his hands together, crouching down. Andy stepped into his hands and got boosted up to the next deck where she scrambled nimbly over the railing, onto the First Class deck.

"She's not bein' logical, I tell ya," Doug muttered to Lily down below. 

Lily shrugged. "Love is not logical."

Along the deck, a man was playing with his son who was spinning a top with a string. The man's overcoat and hat sat on a deck chair nearby. Andy emerged behind them and calmly picked up the coat and bowler hat. She walked away, slipping into the coat and tucking her hair into the hat at a jaunty angle. At a distance she could pass for a gentleman.

A little further down the deck, Thomas Andrews led the Runway group on a tour of the ship.

"Mr. Andrews," Miranda started. "I did the sum in my head, and with the number of lifeboats times the capacity you mentioned--forgive me, but it seems there are not enough for everyone on board."

Mr. Andrews turned to the editor.

"About half, actually. Miranda, you miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new type davits, which can take an extra row of boats here, but it was thought by some that the deck would look too cluttered, so I was over ruled."

Irv smacked the side of the boat. "Waste of deck space it is on an unsinkable ship."

"Sleep soundly, Miranda Priestly. I have built you a good ship, strong and true. She's all the lifeboats you need."

They group continued on, and as they passed boat seven, someone approached behind the group. It was Andy. She tapped Miranda on the shoulder, who gasped. Andy motioned for her to follow, and she cut away from the group to a large door that was pushed open, ducking into the first class gymnasium, which was empty.

Andy closed the door behind her.

"Andrea, this is impossible. I can't see you," Miranda insisted, but the younger woman took her by the shoulders.

"Miranda, you're no picnic. You're a filthy rich dragon lady even, but under that you're a strong, pure heart, and you're the most amazingly astounding woman I've ever known and--"

"Andrea, I--"

"No wait. Let me try to get this out. You're amazing, and I know I have nothing to offer you, Miranda. I know that. But I'm involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can't turn away without knowing that you're going to be alright."

Miranda felt overwhelmed. Andrea was so open and real, not like anyone she had ever known.

"You're making this very hard. I'll be fine. Really," the editor insisted.

"I don't think so. They've got you trapped, Miranda! And you're going to die if you don't break free. Maybe not right away, because you're strong. But sooner or later the fire in you is going to go out."

There was a furious pause after Andy's cry before Miranda responded.

"It's not up to you to save me, Andrea."

"You're right. Only you can do that." The younger woman backed down and shook her head. Miranda chose to ignore it, though she didn't want to.

"I have to get back, they'll miss me. Please, Andrea, for both our sakes, leave me alone." And with that, the white haired exited the room, leaving behind an uneasy Andy.

...

That afternoon for four o'clock tea, Miranda sat in the most elegant room on the ship, done in Louis Quinze Versaille style. She was placed on a divan with two others. One being Nigel Kipling, her fashion director. The other being designer Lady Duff-Gordon. Though she heard everything and understood the entire conversation, Miranda wasn't worth one single word.

"Of course the proofs had to be sent back to the studio twice," Nigel babbled on to the designer. "And the Hermes scarves! Let me tell you what an odyssey that has been. Jocelyn decided she wanted lavender. She knows Miranda detests the color, yet she did it for the spring collection."

It was like Miranda wasn't even at the table.

"If only you'd come to me sooner!" Lucile spouted. "Charles-Emile saw some of my designs in La Mode Illustree. He sent me sixteen scarves for the trousseau of the Duchess of Marlborough's youngest daughter. They were quite charming. But I think you'll agree, my dear, that together we've created something of a phoenix from the ashes."

Miranda heard laughter, but didn't remember what they had been talking about. Only one thing, or rather person, could seem to occupy her mind. She stood up abruptly, telling her company that she was going to find her daughters before dinner.

...

In the dusk light, Titanic steamed on. The sky looked as if it was lit by the embers of a giant fire and the ship loomed. 

Andy was resting right in her favorite spot, the apex of the bow railing. She closed her eyes, letting the chill wind clear her head. A voice from behind startled her.

"Hello, Andrea."

Andy turned and there she was, standing there.

"I changed my mind," Miranda said, her voice silky and sounding exactly the way the afternoon looked.

Andy smiled at her, eyes completely drinking her in. The editor's cheeks were red with the chill wind, and her eyes sparkling. The soft white curls of her hair blew wildly about her face.

"Lily said you might be up--"

"Sssshh. Come here." Andy held out her hand and brought Miranda closer to the railing, placing her hands on the older woman's waist as if she was going to kiss her.

"Close your eyes," Andrea instructed. Miranda hesitated, but did as she was told. Andy turned her to face forward the way the ship was going, then pressed her gently to the rail, standing right behind her. Then she took two hands and raised them until the editor was standing with her arms outstretched on each side like wings.

"Okay. Open them."

Miranda gasped. There was nothing in her field of vision but water. It's like there was no ship under them at all, just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolls toward her, a hammered copper shield under a dusk sky. There is only the wind, and the hiss of the water fifty feet below.

"I'm flying," Miranda whispered, leaning forward. Andy placed her hands on the woman's waist to steady her, the leaned in close to her ear.

"Come Josephine in my flying machine," she sang softly and Miranda smiled and closed her eyes again, feeling herself floating weightless far above the sea. She leaned back, gently pressing her back against Andy's chest, who in turn pushed forward slightly against her.

Slowly, Andy raised her hands until they met Miranda's. Their fingertips touched gently; then intertwined. Moving slowly, their fingers caressed through and around each other like the bodies of two lovers. 

Andy tipped her face forward into white blowing hair, letting the scent of the editor was over her, until their cheeks touched.

Miranda turned her head until her lips were near Andy's. She lowered her arms, turning further, until she found her mouth with the younger woman's. Andy wrapped her arms around from behind, and they kissed like this. Miranda was surrendering to her, to the emotion, to the inevitable. They kept kissing, slowly and tremulously, and then with building passion.

Andy and the ship seemed to merge into one force of power and optimism, lifting Miranda, buoying her forward on a magical journey, soaring onward into a night without fear.


	10. Two Souls United

_"That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight," Caroline Montgomery spoke._

_Brock Lovett changed out the tape in the minicassette recorder._

_"So we're up to dusk on the night of the sinking. Six hours to go," he mumbled. Off to the side, Lewis Bodine was pacing back and forth._

_"Don't you love it? There's Smith, he's standing there with the iceber warning in his fucking hand--excuse me, his hand, and he's ordering more speed."_

_Brock shook his head. "Twenty six years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're going to see in time to turn. The ship's too big with too small a rudder, it can't corner worth a damn. Everything he knows is wrong."_

_Caroline ignored this conversation. She was twirling an art-nouveau comb with a jade butterfly on the handle in her hands. It had once been beautiful. It was once her mother's._

...

Andy was overwhelmed by the opulence of the room. The beautiful woodwork and satin upholstery was like a dream. She set her sketchbook and drawing materials on the marble table.

"Will this light do? Don't artists need good light?" Miranda asked, moving about in the stateroom.

"Zat is true, but I am not used to working in such 'orreeble conditions," Andy croaked in a bad french accent, causing Miranda to laugh.

"Hey, Chanel!" Andy gasped as she spotted a mockup laying on a wood table. She crouched next to it, observing a wide flowing skirt. Miranda was surprised at the recognition.

"I did a drawing of a woman wearing this exact dress in Paris, and I went and looked for the collection. I thought the use of color from the bottom of the skirt up was brilliant. I saw Coco Chanel once, through a hole in this garden fence in Giverny. I love her work." Andy stared at the mockup for a bit longer until she noticed Miranda going into a wardrobe and working the combination of a safe. She was fascinated.

"Irv insists on lugging this thing everywhere," Miranda explained.

"Should I be expecting him anytime soon?" Andy asked.

"Not as long as the cigars and brandy hold out."

Clunk! She unlocked the safe. Miranda met Andy's eyes in the mirror behind the safe as she opened it, removing the necklace. She held it out to Andy, who touched it nervously.

"What is it? A sapphire?" she asked.

"A diamond. A very rare diamond, called the Heart of the Ocean."   

Andy let it go, gazing at wealth beyond her comprehension.

"I want you to draw me like one of your French girls, wearing this," Miranda requested. Andy nodded simply, another drawing to do.

"Wearing only this," the editor finished. Andy flushed and looked to her surprised, only to find Miranda smiling before she retreated into her own room.

Andy stayed in the sitting room, sharpening and laying out her pencils like surgical tools. She was ready.

Miranda emerged moments later, wearing a silk kimono and a butterfly comb that held back her white hair. She took the comb out and approached Andy.

"The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a porcelain doll," she tossed Andy a dime. "As a paying customer, i expect to get what I want."

The beautiful editor took a step back, parting the kimono. The blue stone lied against her creamy breast. Her heart pounding as she lowered the robe.

Andy looked so stricken it was almost comical.

The gray robe fell to the floor.

"Just-uh-lay over on the bed-I mean the couch," Andy instructed her, and Miranda moved to pose on the divan, settling like a cat.

"Tell me when it looks right to you," she told the artist.

"Uh, just bed your left leg a little and-and lower your head. Eyes to me. That's it."

Andy took a deep breath and began to sketch. Thirty seconds in she dropped her pencil and Miranda stifled a laugh.

"I believe you are blushing, Miss Big Artiste. I can't imagine Madame Chanel blushing," Miranda teased.

"She designs clothing," Andy responded, sweating.

Miranda lay perfectly still on the divan, her eyes never leaving Andy's over the top edge of the sketchpad. The look in her eyes would be an image she'd carry for the rest of her life.

Despite her own nervousness, Andy drew with sure strokes, and what emerged was the best thing she had ever done. Miranda's pose was languid, her hands beautiful, and her eyes radiating her energy.

...

_"Her heart must have been pounding the whole time. I know mine would have been. I imagine it was the most erotic moment... up until then at least."_

_A semicircle of listeners sat in frozen silence listening to Caroline. Bodine was the first to speak._

_"So what, uh, happened next?"_

_"You mean, did they 'do it'?" Caroline laughed. "Nobody likes to imagine their parent 'doing it', Mr. Bodine. Sorry to disappoint you."_

...

Miranda stared at the drawing, pleased.

"Date it, Andrea. I want to always remember this night.

She did: 4/14/1912. Meanwhile, Miranda scribbled a note on a piece of Titanic stationary, placing it with the drawing and the diamond, shoving both back in the safe and closing the door with a clunk.

She disappeared into her stateroom, emerging a minute later fully dressed to where Andy sat in the sitting room, looking at mockups.

They both suddenly looked up as the sound of a key through the lock. 

"Miss Priestly?" came Christian Thompson's unmistakable voice.

Miranda yanked Andy towards the bedrooms, past the twins room and into hers. They tried to silently close the door, thinking it was successful until they came out of the stateroom. They walked quickly along the corridor toward the B deck foyer. They were only halfway across when the sitting room door opened to the corridor and Christian waltzed out. He spotted Andy with Miranda and hustled after them.

"Come on!" Miranda huffed and they broke out into a run, surprising the few ladies and gentlemen about.

They zoomed past the stairs to the bank of elevators. They ran into one, shocking the hell out of the operator.

"Take us down. Quickly, quickly!" Miranda demanded, still scaring him.

The operator scrambled to comply. Andy even helped close the steel gate. Christian slammed one hand on the bars of the gate as they started to descend.

Once they exited the elevator they trotted down another flight of stairs into an F-deck corridor. They leaned against a wall, laughing and out of breath in a functional space with access to a number of machine spaces.

"Pretty tough for a valet, this fella," Andy breathed.

"He's actually a writer. Irv hired him to be on board with Jacqueline when she starts handling my magazine," Miranda explained.

"Uh oh," Andy shouted as Christian spotted them from a cross corridor nearby. He charged toward them and the couple ran around a corner into a blind alley. There was one door marked crew only, and Andy flung it open.

Now they were in a roaring ran room with no way out except a ladder going down. Andy latched the deadbolt on the door and Christian slammed against it a mere moment later.

"Now what?" Miranda asked, covering her ears from the loud noise.

"What?" Andy asked back.

It looked about as if their only way out was down. Andy gestured to the ladder.

"After you, m'lady," she grinned and they made their way down the escape ladder to boiler rooms five and six.

Both Miranda and Andy looked around in amazement. It was like a vision of hell itself, with the roaring furnaces and black figures moving in the smoky glow. The couple began running the length of the boiler room, dodging amazed stokers and trimmers with their wheelbarrows of coal.

"Carry on," Andy shouted to them as they ran. "Don't mind us.

They squeezed through an open watertight door into boiler room six, Andy pulling Miranda fiercely through the infernal valley between boiler rooms, out of sight from the working crew. They watched from the shadows, seeing the stokers working in the hellish glow, shoveling coal into the insatiable maws of the furnaces. The whole place thundered with the roar of the fires.

Andy kissed Miranda's face, tasting the sweat trickling down from her forehead. They kissed passionately in the steamy, pounding darkness.

"C'mon," Andy said pulling back and gently tugging Miranda to follow her into the cargo hold.

The editor hugged herself against the cold after the dripping heat of the boiler room.

They came upon William Carter's brand new renault touring car, lashing down to a pallet. It looked like a royal coach from a fairy tale, it's brass trim and headlamps nicely set off by its deep burgundy color.

Miranda climbed into the plush upholstered backseat, acting very royal. There were cut crystal bud vases on the walls, each containing a rose. Andy jumped into the driver's seat, enjoying the feel of the leather and wood. She honked the horn twice.

"Where to, Miss?" she jokingly asked Miranda. The editor reached out with her arms and wrapped them around the younger woman.

"To the stars," the replied and pulled Andy from the drivers seat into the shadows. Andy landed right next to her, and her breathing seemed so loud in the quiet darkness. They gazed at each other, Miranda smiling. It was the moment of truth.

"Are you nervous?" Andy asked.

"Au contraire, mon cher," Miranda whispered.

Andy gently stroked the editor's face, cherishing her. Miranda in turn, kisses Andy's artist fingers.

Andy kissed her, and Miranda slid down in the seat under the younger woman's welcome weight.

...

Up in the crows nest, Frederick Fleet and his partner Reginald Lee shivered under the biting cold air.

"I can smell ice, you know. When it's near," Fleet commented, rubbing his hands together. 

Lee gave him a doubtful look.

"Bollocks!" Lee scoffed.

"Well I can, alright!"

Down below on the officer's bridge, Second Officer Charles Lightoller conversed with First Officer William Murdoch.

"Did you ever find those binoculars for the lookouts?" Murdoch asked.

"Haven't seen them since Southampton," Lightoller admitted. "Anyway, I'll be on my rounds, cheerio."

Murdoch nodded to the man and placed himself along the bridge to gaze out at the starry night. The water was such a flat calm. Titanic steamed on, hellbent through the darkness.


	11. Iceberg Right Ahead

~~~~In the renault, the windows carried a layer of fog on them, in which Miranda's hand came up in a moment of passion, slamming into the window and making a hand print in the veil of condensation.

Inside the actual car, Andy and Miranda lay intertwined, neither with clothes. Both their faces were flushed and they looked at each other wonderingly. Miranda placed her hands on Andy's face as if to check and make sure she was real.

"You're trembling," the older woman whispered.

"It's okay, I'm alright," Andy sighed and rested her head against her lover's chest, feeling her heart beating.

...

_"My mother wasn't the first person to lay with another while still married, and certainly not the last, by several million. But I can hardly believe she did anything wrong when her own marriage was failing at home and divorce was decades away from being legal."_

...

Irv Ravitz stood next to the open safe, staring at the drawing of Miranda. His face clenched with fury as he read the note again: 'Irv, now you can have both me and Jacqueline in the September issue, Miranda'.

Irv crumpled Miranda's note, then took the drawing as if he was going to rip it in half. He almost did, but then stopped himself.

"I have a better idea," he mumbled to Christian Thompson.

...

Two stewards entered the cargo hold below the ship under strict orders from Irv Ravitz and Christian Thompson to find Miranda Priestly and the third class scum she was with. They approached the Renault with its fogged up rear window and Miranda's visible hand print. They approached it slowly. The steward whipped open the door to catch them in the act, only the backseat was empty.

From beyond the stacks of cargo, Andy and Miranda tried to suppress laughter as they high tailed it out of there and plunged through the nearest way out. Both were fully dressed now and exited through a crew door onto the deck. They could barely stand as they were laughing too hard.

"Did you see those guys' faces?" Andy giggled and scooped Miranda into her arms. They stood there for a moment embracing, breath clouds around them in the freezing air, but neither of them even felt cold.

"When the ship docks, the twins and I are getting off with you," Miranda told her.

"This is crazy," Andy replied and stroked Miranda's face again.

"I know. It doesn't make any sense. That's why I have hope. My god, I live on it."

Andy pulled the editor closer and kissed her fiercely.

In the crow's nest, Fleet nudged Lee.

"Look at that, would ya," he commented.

"They're a bloody sight warmer than we are," Lee joked.

"Well if that's what it takes for us two to get warm I'd rather not if it's all the same for you, alright."

The two both had a good laugh at that one. It was Fleet's expression that fell first. Glancing forward again, he did a double take and the color instantly drained from his face.

A massive iceberg lay right in their path.

"Bugger me!!" they rang the lookout bell three times then grabbed the telephone, calling the bridge.

"Pick up ya bastards!"

Sixth officer Moody unhurriedly answered the phone.

"Is someone there?" Fleet screeched.

"Yes. What do you see?"

"Iceberg right ahead!"

"Thank you." He hung up just as Murdoch came sliding across the bridge.

"Hard to starboard!" he shouted at Quartermaster Hitchens at the helm, and then began rushing to the engine room telegraphs, signaling 'full speed astern'.

"Hard to starboard. The helm is hard over, sir," Hitchens informed the officer.

Down below decks, Chief Engineer Bell was checking the soup he was warming on a steam manifold when the telegraph next to him clanged. He stared at it only for a moment, unbelieving, then reacted.

Officer Murdoch from the bridge could only watch the berg growing and coming straight ahead. As they approached the bow finally started to turn left. It looked like they were about to make it.

Suddenly, just as he began to hope, there was a low and loud crunch as the ship brushed the ice on the starboard bow.

Underwater, the ice smashed into the steel hull plates, scraping the ship. Rivets popped and the hull flexed under the load.

In hold number two the hull buckled four feet with a sound like thunder. Like a sledgehammer beating along outside the ship, the berg ripped the hull plates and the sea poured in, icy water swirling around.

In boiler room six, the stokers staggered as they heard the rolling thunder of the collision. The starboard side of the ship buckled and the rushing water swept them off their feet..

On the forward well deck, Andy and Miranda broke their kiss abruptly and looked up in astonishment as the berg sailed past, blocking out the sky like a mountain. Fragments broke off of it and crashed down onto the deck. The couple had to jump back to avoid flying chunks of ice.

"Hard to port!" Murdoch shouted from the bridge, realizing had to clear the stern. He then rushed quickly to ring the watertight door alarm, throwing the switch that closed them.

The entire ship gently shook as the rumble went on. In his stateroom, surrounded by piles of plans, Thomas Andrws looked up at the sound of a crystal light fixture tinkling like a windchime. He felt the shudder run through the ship, and the iceberg appeared on his face. Too much of his soul was in the ship for him not to feel its mortal wound.

"Note the time. Enter it in the log," Murdoch said stiffly to Moody.

At that time, Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin onto the bridge, tucking in his shirt.

"What was that, Mr. Murdoch?" he asked.

"An iceberg, sir. I put her hard 'a starboard and ran the the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port round it but she hit."

"Close the watertight doors."

"The doors are closed, sir."

Together they rushed out onto the starboard wing. Smith looked into the darkness aft then wheeled around to Fourth Officer Boxhall.

"Find the Carpenter and get him to sound the ship."

Down in steerage, Lily was awoken by the shudder and leaped out of her bunk to be greeted with the freezing water pooled around her ankles. "Ho-- What the fuck!" she shouted and flipped on the light switch.

She opened the stateroom door and found Doug standing outside. He stood in three inches of icy water, and more coming in.

"C'mon, let's get the hell out of here," Doug shouted.

Andy and Miranda, still on the well deck, bent over the starboard rail, looking at the hull of the ship.

"Looks okay, I don't see anything," Andy stated.

"Could it have damaged the ship?" Miranda asked.

"It didn't seem like much of a bump. I'm sure we're okay."

Up in the first class corridor, a steward tried to reassure passengers that everything was fine as they pestered with questions. He was stopped in his path by Irv Ravitz and Christian Thompson.

"Please, sir. There is no emergency," he told the two as they called out for him.

"Yes there is, I have been robbed. Fetch the Master at Arms. Now you moron!" Irv barked.

Andy and Miranda, now suddenly coming to terms with how cold it was, began climbing the stairs back to first class. They passed Captain Smith, the Carpenter, Officer Murdoch and Thomas Andrews on the way, having an intense meeting on the damage of the ship. The inspection party moved down the stairs.

"She's making water fast, in the forepeak tank and the forward holds, in boiler room six."

"Can you sure up?"

"Not unless the pumps get ahead."

Andy leaned closer to Miranda and whispered in a low voice. "This is bad."

"We have to tell Irv and Nigel," Miranda said.

"Now it's worse."

...

Andy and Miranda crossed the foyer in B deck, holding hands and entering the corridor to the first class stateroom suites. Christian Thompson was waiting for them in the hall as they approached.

"We've been looking for you, Miranda," he greeted and followed the couple as they strode past. Unseen, he moved close behind Andy and slipped the diamond necklace into the pocket of her overcoat.

Nigel and Irv waited in the sitting room along with the Master at Arms and two stewards. There was complete silence as Andy and Miranda entered.

"Something serious has happened," the editor spoke, breaking the silence.

"That's right," Irv answered. "Two things important to the magazine have disappeared this evening. Now that one is back, I have a pretty good idea where to find the other." He looked from Miranda to Andy and finally to the Master At Arms. "Search the girl."

"Coat off, love," the Master At Arms ordered Andy and stepped up. Christian Thompson ripped the coat from Andy's arms and she shook her head in dismay, shrugging out of it. She was then patted down.

"This is horseshit," she scoffed.

"Irv, you can't be serious! We're in the middle of an emergency and you--" she paused as one of the stewards pulled the diamond from Andy's coat. Miranda was stunned. Needless to say, so was Andy.

"Is this it?" the steward asked.

"That's it," Irv told him.

"Right then," The Master At Arms said. "Now don't make a fuss." 

He began to handcuff Andy.

"Don't you believe it, Miranda! Don't!"

The older woman was uncertain. "She couldn't have."

"Of course she could. Easy enough for a professional," Irv muttered and shot Andy a disgusted look.

"But I was with her the whole time, this is absurd."

Irv leaned in to her ear, speaking low and cold. "Maybe she did it while you were putting your clothes back on."

"Real slick. Miranda, they put it in my pocket!" Andy shouted as he watched Irv whispering to the editor.

Christian Thompson held up Andy's jacket. "It's not even your pocket, is it? Property of A.L Ryerson," he read the label inside the collar with the owner's name.

"That was reported stolen today," The Master At Arms said.

"I was going to return it! Miranda--"

Miranda however, felt utterly betrayed, hurt and confused. She shrunk away from Andy as she was being hauled out of the stateroom. She couldn't look her in the eye.

"I have to go wake the girls," she muttered and began walking away from the others.

"I didn't do it, Miranda, you know it! Don't listen to them! I didn't do this! Miranda, you know me!"

The editor, devastated, stormed off through rooms, looking for comfort in her daughters.


	12. Goodbye, Nigel

At 12:30 in the morning of April 15, 1912, Thomas Andrews unrolled a big drawing of the ship across a chartroom table. It was a side elevation, showing all the watertight bulkheads. His hands were shaking, and Murchoch hovered behind him and the Captain.

"When can we get underway, damn it," Ismay growled.

The Captain glared at him and turned back to the drawing. Mr. Andrews pointed to it.

"Water fourteen feet above the keel in ten minutes, in the forepeak, in all three holds, and in boiler room six," he spouted.

"That's right," The Captain nodded.

"That's five compartments," his breath was shaky. "She can stay afloat with the first four compartments breached. But not five. Not five. As she goes down by the head the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads, at E deck, from one to the next, back and back. There's no stopping it."

"The pumps, if we opened the doors--"

"The pumps buy you time, but minutes only. From this moment on, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder."

"But the ship can't sink!" Ismay spat in disbelief.

"She is made of iron, sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty," Andrews hushed Ismay.

Captain Smith was ghost white, and looked like he had been gutpunched.

"How much time?" he asked.

"An hour, two at most."

Ismay, behind the two reeled as his dream now turned into his worst nightmare.

"And how many aboard, Mr. Murdoch?" Smith asked.

"Two thousand two hundred souls aboard, sir," the officer replied.

There was a long beat before The Captain turned to his employer.

"I believe you may get your headlines, Mr. Ismay."

...

There was knocking and voices in the corridor outside of Miranda's stateroom. Her daughters were awake now, and Nigel was with them while she had a 'talk' with Irv.

It couldn't really be regarded as a talk, but rather a stare down as he regarded her coldly before slapping her across the face.

"It is an old queer slut, isn't it?" he spat.

To Miranda, the blow was inconsequential compared to the blow her heart had just received. She showed no response, and to that Irv grabbed her shoulders roughly.

"Look at me, you filthy--"

There was a loud knock on the door and an urgent voice. The door opened and their steward shoved his way in.

"Sir, I've been told to ask you to please put your lifebelt on and come up to the boat deck," the steward said.

"Get out. We're busy," Irv tried to push him away, but he was persistent, walking in and getting the lifebelts down from the top of a dresser.

"I'm sorry about the inconvenience, Mr. Ravitz, but it's Captain's orders. Please dress warmly, it's quite cold out tonight."

He handed Miranda a life jacket, she didn't take it.

"This is ridiculous," Irv muttered.

Within minutes the Runway entourage came up to the A-deck foyer. Irv carried the lifebelts, almost as an afterthought. Miranda was like a sleepwalker.

"It's the God damned English doing everything by the book," Irv said, disgusted at the lack of information he was receiving.

"There's no need for language, Mr. Ravitz," Nigel sourly commented and turned to Emily.

"Go back and turn the heaters on in our rooms. I'd like a cup of tea when I return."

The redhead nodded and broke away from the group.

Miranda spotted Thomas Andrews along the first class staircase, glancing around the magnificent room in which he knew was doomed. She recognized his heartbroken expression and approached him, Irv following close behind her.

"Mr. Andrews, I saw the iceberg. And I see it in your eyes. Please tell me the truth," she whispered. He looked around before stepping closer to the editor.

"The ship will sink," he said.

"You're certain?"

"Yes. In an hour or so, all this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic."

"My God," now it was Irv's turn to be shocked.

"Please tell only who you must, I don't want to be responsible for a panic. And get to a boat quickly. Don't wait. You remember what I told you about the boats?"

"Yes," Miranda nodded. "I understand. Thank you."

...

Andy was hauled into the office of the Master at Arms, being handcuffed to a four inch water pipe as a crewman rushed in anxiously, blurting to the Master at Arms that he was needed by the Purser.

"Go on. I'll keep an eye on her," Christian Thompson smirked. The Master at Arms nodded and tossed the handcuff key before he disappeared from the room. Meanwhile, Christian pulled out a Colt .45 automatic from under his coat.

...

"You watch. They'll put us off in these silly little boats to freeze, and we'll all be back on board by breakfast," muttered a woman in the crowd next to Miranda, who tried to ignore it as they waited in the cold air on the boat deck.

Nigel snapped around next to her and frowned. "What happened to that Chanel brooch you wore for tea yesterday? Did Emily take it back to the purser's safe?"

"It's still in my room," Miranda told him.

"No, that's my favorite brooch. We must take it! I'll go back for it," he turned and Irv grabbed him firmly by the arm, shaking his head.

"Stay here, Nigel," the chairman said.

Miranda then pulled him close, taking a sweeping glance down to her daughters before leaning in to the Fashion Director's ear.

"Promise me something," she said. Nigel nodded, an acknowledgement that he would walk to the ends of earth for his boss, promise her anything out of loyalty.

"Promise me that the girls will get out of this. Promise me you'll make sure they--" her voice broke as Caroline had turned around to look at her mother, a soft, innocent gaze beaming at her in curiosity. "--make sure they survive it. They have to, Nigel, they have to. Promise me this one thing. It is all I can ask."

He nodded his head rapidly. "I promise you, Miranda." 

She pulled away and Nigel saw her expression, knowing fear for the first time.

...

Inside the Master at Arms' office, Andy stood chained to the waterpipe next to a porthole which she tried to see out of. The porthole was submerged in water, and all Andy could see was the black sea.

"You know, I do believe the ship may sink," Christian teased as he rolled a bullet across a desk. He then stashed the bullet in his .45.

He crossed the room to Andy, getting close before he said, "I've been asked to give you this small token of our appreciation--"

His fist rolled around and collided hard into Andy's stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

"Compliments of Mr. Irving Ravitz," Christian smirked and flipped the handcuff key in the air, catching it and putting it in his pocket before exiting. Andy was left hunched over against the waterpipe, gasping for air.

...

As the first rockets went off, a gasp erupted from the crowd and startled faces turned upward, fear now in their eyes.

Miranda watched the farewells taking place right in front of her as they stepped closer to the boat. Husbands saying goodbye to wives and children. Lovers and friends parted. Nearby, Molly was getting a reluctant woman to board the boat.

"Come on, you heard the man. Get in the boat, sister," Molly tried to reassure her.

"Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?" Irv asked. "I hope they're not too crowded--"

Miranda whirled around to face him.

"Oh, Irv, shut up!" she boomed, causing a couple other passengers to turn and gape. Irv looked and her and froze, mouth open. Miranda went on.

"Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough boats--not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die."

Irv closed his mouth and raised his eyebrows, his harsh gaze fixed upon the editor.

"Not the better half," he muttered to her. Nigel turned around as the statement hit him like a thunderbolt. And then it hit Miranda. Andy was third class. She didn't stand a chance. Another rocket burst overhead, bathing Miranda's twisted face in white light.

"You unimaginable bastard," she shook her head and took a step back.

"Come on, girls, get in the boat. First class seats are right up here," Molly Brown called out to the twins, who clung to each other desperately behind their mother. Molly held out her hand across the space between the boat and the ship, urging the girls and Miranda to come forward.

Miranda nudged them a little, but they resisted, both clinging to her arms for dear life.

"Mommy, no," Cassidy squealed as they closed in on the davits.

Miranda felt her throat swell and she knelt down to look at each of them. A scared reflection upon each their faces. Her eyes began to hurt with the threat of tears.

"Bobbsey's, I need you to be good for Mommy, okay? I'll be on the next boat. You'll be with Nigel for now," she stroked two cold cheeks, and her eyes blurred from tears, or what she pretended was the cold. To avoid making her temporary goodbye more difficult she pulled them into a hug before urging them towards the boat.

Cassidy was swept away from Officer Lightoller and handed off to Molly. Caroline however, was more reluctant and would not let go of her death grip on her mother.

"Darling, you need to get on the boat," Miranda told her and rubbed her arms. The girl shook her head, and Cassidy was beginning to get distressed behind her on the boat.

"No," she spouted.

"Caroline, get in the boat," Miranda ordered, this time pulling away from her own daughter. She was gently pulled back by an unenthusiastic Nigel.

When the officer tried to tell him no men were allowed on the boat, Miranda only needed a few cautious words about her daughters well being to convince him into letting the fashion director on. Once he was on he held the twins close to him.

Cassidy had her head bent, crying quietly and almost invisibly. Caroline kept a straight face, her blue eyes never leaving Miranda's identical ones. She had a fixed stare that boldly seemed to state 'I'll never forgive you'.

This had to work. They had to live for her. Maybe Miranda hadn't been the greatest mother in the world. Long nights of being away at galas or traveling for shows had wrecked her home life. It had wrecked her marriage, and it was on its way to destroying her relationship with her daughters. But this, she thought, this had to be something good. This had to be right, and they had to live. There would be another boat. The editor depended on it.

"Come on, Miranda. You're next, darlin'," Molly Brown piped up, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

Miranda stepped away from the boat, shaking her head.

"Miranda, get in the boat," Nigel called from the other side.

"Goodbye, Nigel," Miranda said emotionless.

All he could do was stand there in the tippy lifeboat, doing nothing. Irv grabbed Miranda's arm as she continued stepping away, eventually pulling away through the crowd. She hurried past the other first class passengers, Irv quickly catching up and grabbing her again, roughly as she fought against it, pushing him away while trying to yank her arm out from his hand.

"Where are you going? To her? Is that it? To be a whore to a queer gutter rat?" Irv asked disbelievingly.

"I'd rather be her whore than your hostage," Miranda spat.

He clenched his jaw and squeezed her arm viciously, pulling her back toward the lifeboat. Miranda pulled out a hairpin and jabbed him hard with it, causing him to let go with a curse and she ran to the crowd.

A few feet away, Officer Lightoller called out "Lower away!!"

The davits began turning and the small boat began dropping slowly against the side of the boat.

"Mommy! MOMMY!" Caroline called out, unable to see her mother in the crowd. Nigel held onto her tightly, but as the boat kept lurching downward and reached the A deck promenade, Caroline Priestly stood up much to her sister's and Nigel's dismay, and lept across the space between the boat and the ship, being caught by a passenger leaning halfway across the boat.

"Caroline!" Nigel called out and reached over for her, but the girl was gone and disappeared into the cluster of people along the boat. Cassidy soon followed before the boat could drop any lower.

"CASSIDY!!"

...

Miranda hurled herself through the first class entrance, running through a knot of people coming out. She rudely pushed through them, Irv close behind her but by the time he made it through the crowd, the editor was gone.


	13. Can Anybody Hear Me?

Andy pulled on the pipe with all her strength. It wasn't budging. She heard an all too familiar gurgling sound of rushing water, and she turned to find it pouring from under the door, spreading rapidly across the floor.

"Shit. No, no, no!" She stood up on the table nearest to her, avoiding the water as she attempting to pull one hand out of the cuffs until her skin was raw. It was no good.

"Help!! Somebody!! Can Anybody hear me?!" she screamed. There was no one to hear her.

...

Miranda was breathless by the time she found Mr. Andrews along the first class corridor. He was checking staterooms, making sure people were out.

"Mr. Andrews, thank God! Where would the Master at Arms take someone under arrest?" Miranda huffed out.

The ship builder looked confused.

"What? You have to get to a boat right away!" he said and began trying to guide her along.

"No! I'll do this with or without your help, sir. But without will take longer."

Andrews was beat, and finally gave in to the desperate woman.

"Take the elevator to the very bottom, go left, down the crewman's passage, then make a right."

"Bottom, left, right," Miranda repeated. "I have it."

"Hurry, Miranda."

She sprinted away and ran up as the last elevator operator was closing up his lift to leave.

"Sorry, miss, but the lifts are closed--"

Without thinking, Miranda grabbed him and shoved him back into the lift.

"I will not be polite, goddamnit!! Being polite gets you nowhere in life! Now take me down!!"

The operator fumbled to close the gate, but started the lift.

...

Nigel and two seamen were rowing, and they had made it about a hundred feet or so away from the ship, able to see that it was angled down into the water with the bow rail less than ten feet above the surface.

He stopped rowing for a moment and just glared at the spectacle of the great liner, its rows of lights blazing, slanting down into the sullen black mirror of the Atlantic. He gripped a small fur coat in his hands where he tried to hold onto Cassidy Priestly, but the girl slipped out of it and jumped back onto Titanic with her twin. He was consumed with guilt. What was to happen when Miranda discovered his promise had not been kept?

...

Through the wrought iron door of the elevator car, Miranda could see the decks going past. It slowed and suddenly ice water was swirling around her legs. She screamed in surprise and so did the operator.

The car had landed in three feet of freezing water, shocking the hell out of her.

"I'm going back up, I'm going back up!" the operator yelped.

"No!" Miranda shouted and reached to claw the door open, hiking up her floor length skirt so she could move across the water. The lift went back up behind her, the most reliable transportation gone. Her eyes scanned the area around her.

"Left, crew passage," Miranda muttered to herself as she slogged through the flooded corridor. She spotted it and hauled herself through the water. The place was understandably deserted, and she was now on her own.

"Right, right... right."

She turned into a cross-corridor, splashing down the hall. A row of doors on each side.

"Andrea?" she called out. "Anddreaaa?"

Inside the Master at Arms' office, Andy rested against the pipe, tired from the straining, realizing she was screwed. Then, she heard the voice.

"Miranda? MIRANDA!! In here!" she began clanging the handcuffs against the metal pipe. "Miranda, I'm in here!"

The door was shoved open, creating a small wave and the editor rushed in, splashing all over Andy as she put her arms around the younger woman.

"Andrea, Andrea, Andrea, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

They were so happy to see each other it was nearly embarrassing.

"That guy Christian put it in my pocket," Andy explained.

"I know, I know," Miranda cried.

"See if you can find a key for these. Try those drawers. It's a little silver one. The editor kissed her face and hugged her again, then began going through the desk.

After a couple moments, Andy asked, "How did you find out I didn't do it?"

Miranda looked up, directly into her eyes.

"I didn't. I just realized I already knew."

They shared a look, then she went back to ransacking the room, searching drawers and cupboards. Andy spotted movement outside the porthole and she took a glance out. A lifeboat hit the surface just above.

Miranda stopped trashing the room and stood there, breathing hard.

"There's no key in here," she said. They looked around at the water, now almost three feet deep.

"You have to go for help," Andy told her, and Miranda nodded.

"I'll be right back."

The editor hurried out of the small room, looking back to Andy once from the doorway, then splashing away.

...

As lifeboat number three bounced across the surface and began rowing away, a first class woman named Gladys Cherry looked overboard and into the black sea. Just below the surface was a green glow from a porthole. She squinted as she saw something blocking the light, and then what looked like a body and a face gazing out into the water.

"My God, there's a person down there!" she huffed, and turned back to her company in the boat.

...

Miranda trudged her way down the hall to a stairwell going up to the next deck. She climbed the stairs numbly, her long skirt leaving a wet trail like a giant snail. She bounded up the stairs only to find herself in a long corridor, part of a labyrinth of steerage hallways forward. She was alone here. And the long groan of stressing metal echoed along the hall as the ship continued to settle. She began running.

"Hello? Somebody?!" she called desperately.

She turned the corner and ran along another corridor in a daze. The hall sloped down into some water which shimmered, reflecting the harsh light. The margin of the water crept toward her and a young man appeared, running through the water, sending up geysers of spray. He pelted past her without slowing, his eyes crazed.

"Help me! We need help!" she called and tried to stop him.

He didn't look back. The entire thing felt like a bad dream. The hull gonged terrifying sounds. The lights flickered a couple times and went out, leaving utter darkness, and then they came back on. Miranda could feel herself hyperventilating. The one moment of blackness being the most terrifying of her life.

At that moment, a steward rounded the nearest corner, his arms full of lifebelts. He appeared upset to still see someone in his section and grabbed Miranda forcefully by the arm, pulling her with him like a wayward child.

"Come on, then, let's get you topside, miss, that's right," he urged.

"Wait. Wait! I need your help! There's a woman down here and--"

"No need for panic, miss. Come along!" he interrupted her.

"No, let me go! You're going the wrong way!" 

He wouldn't listen. And he wouldn't let her go. She shouted in his ear and when he turned around the editor punched him squarely in the nose. Shocked, let go and staggered back, clutching a bloody nose.

"To Hell with you!" the steward spat out and ran off. Miranda took the time to spit after him, just the way Andy taught her. Leaning back against the wall, the lights flickered again, and she spotted a glass case with a fire ax in it.  Breaking the glass with a battered suitcase discarded nearby, she seized the ax and ran back the same way she came.

Upon reaching the stairwell, she looked down and gasped. The water had flooded the bottom five steps. She stepped down and had to crouch to look along the corridor to the room where Andy remained trapped.

Realizing her Max Mara studio coat was just going to drag her down, she shed the thing and let it lay on the stairs, presenting the editor in only her navy blue Theory dress.

Miranda plunged into the water, which was up to her waist, and powered forward, holding the ax with two hands above her head. She grimaced at the pain from the literally freezing water.

Inside the room, Andy was squatting on top of the bench next to her, hugging the water pipe. Miranda waded in, carrying the ax.

"Will this work?" she asked.

"We'll find out," Andy responded.

They were both terrified, but tried to keep the panic at bay. Andy positioned the chain connecting the two cuffs, stretching it taut across the steel pipe. It was very short of course, and her exposed wrists were on either side of it.

"Try a couple practice swings," Andy told the editor, and she hefted the ax, thunking it into a wooden cabinet.

"Now try to hit the same mark again, Miranda, you can do it."

The editor swung hard and the blade came down four inches from the original mark.

"Okay, that's enough practice," Andy said. She winced and  braced herself as Miranda raised the ax. She had to hit an inch wide target with all the force she could muster, and Andy's hands on either side.

"Miranda, I trust you," Andy spewed, trying to remain calm. She closed her eyes, so did Miranda.

The ax came down and a loud clank sounded throughout the room as the ax collided with metal. Miranda gingerly opened her eyes and looked to Andy who was grinning wildly with two separate cuffs.

Miranda dropped the ax, all strength going out of her. Andy climbed down into the water next to her, unable to breathe for a second.

"Shit! Shit, ow, ow, ow, that is cold! Come on, let's go!" Andy shouted out. They waded into the hallway. Miranda found the staircase going up, but Andy quickly stopped her. There was only about a foot of the stairwell opening visible.

"Too deep," Andy said. "We gotta find another way out."


	14. Starting To Fall Apart

In lifeboat number six, Nigel Kipling looked back at the Titanic, transfixed by the sight of the dying liner. The bowsprit was now barely above the waterline. Another one of Boxhall's rockets exploded overhead. It lit up the whole area, and illuminated about half a dozen boats in the water, spreading out from the ship.

"Now there's somethin' you don't see everyday," Molly Brown uttered in the coldness next to him.  
...

With a loud crash, a wooden door frame splintered and a door burst open under the force of Andy's shoulder. She stumbled out with Miranda right behind her into the widest corridor of the ship. A steward who was herding people nearby, marched over.

"Hey! You'll have to pay for that, you know. That's White Star Line property--"

Miranda and Andy spun around together to face him. 

"Shut up!" They shouted simultaneously, and joined the steerage stragglers going aft. In places the corridor was almost completely blocked by large families carrying all their luggage.

An Irish woman gave Miranda a blanket, more for modesty than because she was blue lipped and shivering.

"Here, lass, cover yerself."

Andy rubbed the editor's arms and tried to warm her up as they walked along.

They tried a number of doors and iron gates along the way, finding them all locked.

Rushing through the corridors and coming up on a stairwell, the couple found Lily, standing with Helga Dahl and her family. She spun around at Andy's voice. Two two came into an enormous hug.

"The boats are all going!" Lily shouted.

"We gotta get up there or we're gonna be gargling saltwater. Where's Doug?" Andy asked.

Lily pointed over the heads of the solidly packed crowd to the stairwell. Doug had his hands on the bars of the steel gate which blocked the head of the stairwell. The crew opened the gate a foot or so and a few women managed to squeeze through.

"Women only! No men. No men!" the stewards were shouting. However, some of the men, not understanding English, tried to rush through the gap, forcing the gate open. The crewmen and stewards pushed them back, shoving and even punching them.

"Get back! Get back you lot! Lock the gate."

They struggled to get the gate closed again, while one of the stewards brandished a small revolver. They locked the gate, and a cry went up among the crowd who surged forward, pounding against the steel and shouting in many different languages.

"For the love of God, man, there are women and children down here. Let us up so we have a chance!" Doug screamed.

The crewmen were scared now. The situation had gotten out of hand and there was now a mob. Doug eventually gave up and pushed his way back down through the crowd rejoining Lily, Andy, and Miranda.

"It's hopeless that way," he said.

"Well, whatever we're goin' to do, we better do it fast," Andy said, and in a sense of urgency, the group stalked off, running along the halls.

...

There was a loud clunk as Irv Ravitz opened his safe and reached inside. Christian Thompson watched from behind as he pulled out two stacks of bills, still banded by bank wrappers. He then took out The Heart Of The Ocean, putting it in the pocket of his overcoat, then locking the safe.

"I make my own luck," Irv smirked and held up the stack of bills.

"So do I," Christian grinned and flashed his .45 tucked into his waistband.

...

They were lost. It seemed as if they would never find a way out and they had been searching forever. They pushed past confused passengers, past a mother changing her baby's diaper on top of an upturned steamer trunk, past a woman arguing heatedly with a man in Serbo-Croation, a wailing child next to them, past a man kneeling to console a woman who was just sitting on the floor, sobbing, and past another man with an English-Arabic dictionary, trying to figure out what the signs meant. His wife and children waited patiently.

Andy came upon a narrow stairwell, and the group decided to run up two decks until they were stopped by a small group pressed up against a steel gate. The steerage men were yelling at a snarky steward.

"Go back to the main stairwell, and everything will be sorted out there," he said.

Andy had finally lost it.

"God damn it to hell son of a bitch!!" she screamed, scaring both Lily Miranda, and the few other steerage passengers.

She moved to grab the end of a bench bolted to the floor on the landing. As she started to pull on it, Lily and Doug pitched in until the bolts sheared and it broke. Miranda figured out what they were doing and cleared a path up the stairs between the waiting people. Andy and Doug ran up the steps with the bench and rammed it into the gate with all their strength. Somewhat making an impact, they retreated and tried again, this time the gate ripping loose from it's track and falling outward, narrowly missing the steward. Led by Andy, the crowd surged forward through.

Miranda, in her most imperious tone, said "If you have any intention of keeping your pathetic job with the White Star Line, I suggest you escort these good people to the boat deck, now."

Class won out. Miranda still had that terrifying effect on people even in crisis.

The steward nodded dumbly and motioned for them to follow.

...

As Titanic seemed to slip further under the frigid water, panic set in around the remaining boats aft. The crowd was now a mix of all three classes. Officers repeatedly warned men back from the boats, but the crowd pushed closer.

Officer Lightoller pulled out his Webley Revolver and aimed it at them.

"Get back! Keep order here!"

The men backed down.

A little further down from him, Officer Lowe shouted for his lifeboat to be lowered away. Lightoller took a deep breath, turned away from the crowd and loaded his pistol.

Irv and Christian passed the massive crowd to where Murdoch stood, lowering his last boat.

"We're too late," Irv muttered.

"There are still some boats forward, stay with this one, Murdoch. He seems to be quite practical," Christian ordered him.

As they looked over the rails to find which boats had been lowered, gunshots sounded from across the ship and echoed away.

"It's starting to fall apart, we don't have much time," Irv said and approached Murdoch who was walking towards the bow.

"Mr. Murdoch," Irv started.

"Mr. Ravitz."

"I'm a businessman, as you know, and I have a business proposition for you."

The water began spilling over the forward railing on B-Deck. One of the collapsibles was being loaded by the most forward davits. The crowd was sparse, most of them still aft, closer to the few boats that still remained.

Irv slipped his hand out of the pocket of his overcoat and into the waist pocket of Murdoch's greatcoat, leaving the stacks of bills there.

"We have an understanding then?"

Murdoch nodded curtly.

Irv, satisfied, stepped back and was soon met by Christian.

"I've found her. She's just over on the starboard side. With her," Christian regretfully told his employer.

Next to him, Murdoch placed a last call for his boat.

"Women and children? Anymore women and children?" the officer asked, and then took a sweeping glance at Irv.

"Anyone else, then?"

Irv looked longingly at the boat. His moment had arrived.

"God damn it all to hell! Come on."

He and Christian retreated from the boat, heading for the starboard side and taking a short-cut through the bridge.

...

On the starboard side, Lightoller kept loading people into boat two. He kept his pistol in his hand at this point. Twenty feet below him the sea was pouring into the doors of the B deck staterooms. They could here the roar of water cascading into the ship.

Even with Andy's arms wrapped around her, Miranda shivered with the cold. Next to her, a woman with two young daughters looked into the eyes of a husband she knew the may not see again.

"Goodbye for a little while. Only for a little while," the father reassured his young children.

"You go with Mummy," he pleaded and nudged them closer to the boat. His wife stumbled in with the children, hiding her tears from them. Beneath the false good cheer, her husband was choked with emotion.

"Hold Mummy's hand and be a good little girl, alright?"

Miranda winced. As a mother herself, she was glad her children were aboard a boat, and hopefully far out from the sinking vessel. She glanced around at the other women. Some were stoic, others were overwhelmed by emotion and had to be helped into the boats. Wives being torn from their men. She thought about Stephen. If he was here. God, if he was here. She supposed she wouldn't shed a tear watching him go down.

Andy turned to Lily and Doug.

"You better go check out the other side," she said, and the two ran off.

Miranda spun around soon after the others left.

"We can get on together," she said.

"Of course we will, Mira," the younger woman assured her. 

Just at that moment in a spur of unluckiness, Irv walked up to them.

"Yes. Get in the boat, Miranda," he ordered lowly, and the editor felt a ball of hot rage fill her chest.

They had almost made it. If her and Andy had been able to sneak into the lifeboat and survive unnoticed, they would have had a chance. Now, if Irv knew she was in the boat it could only play to his advantage. Even if she lived, even if she made it back home to New York with Andy, Irv Ravitz would rip her apart, and would quite enjoy doing so. If she knew anything about him, he would ensure his own survival, no matter what. Even at the expense of others. Her heart sank.

Didn't they almost have it all?

"My god, you look a fright," Irv said, taking a glance at Miranda who was shivering in her wet slip and stockings, a shocking display for someone at the top of the fashion industry, for the woman that dressed the world.

"Here, put this on," he shrugged off his coat and draped it around her. He did it for modesty, not the cold.

"Quickly, ladies. Step into the boat. Hurry, please," one of the officers pulled Miranda and Andy away, ushering them towards the boat.

Andy herself knew even if she got on that boat, there was no easy way out of this. Survival didn't ensure happiness. Irv would fight until Andy or both of them were dead in the water.

Officer Lightoller grabbed Miranda first, easing her across the space between the edge of the ship and the boat. As she boarded and Andy was the next one up, Irv leaned in close to her ear.

"I'll always win, Andrea. One way or another," he growled. "Too bad I didn't keep that drawing. It's going to be worth a lot more by morning." 

Before Andy could respond, she was swept away and placed into the boat next to the editor. Everything was a rush and blur. Andy knew they were screwed.

"Lower away!"

As the ropes worked through the pulleys, all sound disappeared.

Miranda wanted to say it would be fine, that they would reach morning and escape together. But the reality of it was not pretty, and anything positive they tried to say about the matter was far from the truth. They would eventually reach New York, and when word got out, Andy would no doubt be arrested, and maybe Miranda too. And if the editor wasn't, Irv would oust the woman from her job and blacklist her across the country. Death even seemed a better alternative than what was coming.

"I love you," Andy whispered to the older woman. She stirred, and looked across to meet her gaze. There were no tears on her face, but her expression had changed to something wretched, and so deeply defeated that you couldn't feel any other emotion except despair. Andy could only hear the pounding in her ears as another rocket burst overhead. The light outlined Andy in a halo like glow. Miranda's hair blowing gently across her face. Her hands trembled, and she couldn't believe any of this was happening.

Then suddenly, all sound came back to Miranda as she heard a familiar small, scared, and frantic voice shouting from back on the ship. It took her a few moments to register who it was as they neared the A deck promenade.

"Mommy!!!" came a shrill child's voice, and Miranda's eyes narrowed in on a clump of red hair from back on the ship.

"No. No, no, no. Caroline?" Miranda breathed. Not her children. In less than a second, she was up and moving. Stepping across the women next to her, she reached for the gunwale, climbing it.

"Miranda!" Andy called after her, but the editor hurled herself out of the boat to the promenade, catching it and scrambling over the rail.

"No, stop her!" Andy could hear Irv Ravitz screaming from up above from the boat deck.

Andy felt no choice but to follow her, and she too scrambled to the edge, fighting her way back over the railing to Miranda on the B deck promenade.

When she arrived she found the editor clutching one crying twin and trying to console the girl. When Miranda saw that Andy had followed her over she released a huge sigh and brought the younger woman in for an embrace.

"Caroline, where is your sister?" Miranda asked urgently as she let Andy go.

"By the stairs. I left her by the clock, by the staircase!" Caroline cried, and Miranda grasped her daughter's and Andy's hand before pushing through a crowd back towards the first class entrance.


	15. Two Tragic Bullets

The three of them burst through the A deck entrance to the grand staircase, across the foyer towards a very obvious and scared Cassidy.

"Oh, Bobbsey," Miranda breathed with much effort and enveloped her other daughter in her arms.

"I'm sorry, mom, I'm so sorry. We jumped back off the lifeboat away from Nigel and we got scared so Caroline went to find you and we couldn't. You were nowhere. We were too afraid to go below decks so Caro went to search the boats again and I stayed here and thought maybe you'd come and I'm sorry I'm sorry," the girl kept repeating.

"God, Cass, no, never," Miranda cried for them. "Never be sorry, my darlings, I love you both so much.

They stood there for awhile, Miranda crouched down, both girls holding her as tight as they could before the editor let go. She turned to Andy.

"You followed me," she said, not at all surprising, but still amazing.

"You jump, I jump, right?"

From above the stairs along the balcony railing, Irv Ravitz came down just in time to see that Miranda had Andy locked in an embrace all the while she was kissing her, no longer caring who her audience was. The twins were clinging beneath them.

Christian approached the chairman and put a restraining hand on him, but Irv whipped around, grabbing the pistol from Christian's waistband in one cobra fast move. He ran along the rail and down the stairs. As he reached the landing above them he raised the gun. 

Andy saw the gun before he screamed in a rage and fired. She only had a split second to react and grabbed Miranda and the girls, pushing them away and towards the staircase leading down. The carved cherub at the foot of the center railing exploded as Irv fired. He fired again quickly, running down the steps toward them. Another bullet blew out the divet from the oak paneling inches from the back of Andy's head.

Irv stepped on the skittering head of the cherub statue and went sprawling. The gun clattered across the marble floor. He stood up drunkenly, reeling, he went over to retrieve it.

The bottom of the grand staircase at the D deck reception room was flooded several feet deep. Andy, Miranda, and the twins came down the stairs two at a time and ran straight into the water. Miranda, with surprising strength, lifted Cassidy straight out of the water, making intense eye contact with Andy hoping she would follow. Andy picked up on the non verbal order and pulled Caroline out of the water and into her own body before it got too deep.

They trudged through the freezing water across the room to where the floor sloped up until they reached the dry footing at the entrance to the dining saloon.

Irv reeled down the stairs in time to see Andy and Miranda carrying the twins through the water, splashing toward the dining room. He fired twice, big gouts of spray near them, but he was not a great shot. The water boiled around his feet and he retreated up the stairs a couple of steps. Around him, the woodward groaned and creaked.

"I hope you enjoy your time together!" he called after them. A few moments later he was joined on the steps by Christian, and Irv chuckled to himself.

"What could possibly be funny?" Christian asked.

"I put the diamond in the coat," the chairman explained. "And I put the coat on her."

...

Miranda, Andy, and the twins sprinted across the first class dining room and straight into a galley. Behind them, tables turned into islands in a lake and at the far end the water has reached the ceiling.

Spotting stairs, Miranda pulled Andy and the twins down, crouching behind a wall on the landing, waiting to see if they were followed. A couple footsteps were heard above, and just steps above them, Christian Thompson wandered upstairs, assuming that they've gone up (who wouldn't?).

After the footsteps receded, the group let out a long breath and then, there it was, the sound of a crying child. Below them. They stepped down to look along the next deck.

The corridor was awash, about a foot deep, and standing against the wall, about fifty feet away from the stairs was a little boy, maybe around the age of five. The water was swirling around his legs and he was wailing.

"We can't leave him," Andy said, and Miranda nodded. They scrambled about across the hall, leaving the safe escape of the stairwell. Andy scooped up the kid and they turned to flee back up, but a torrent of water came pouring down the stairs like rapids. In seconds it became too powerful for them to go against.

"Come on," Andy pulled the others, charging the other way down the flooding corridor, blasting up spray with each footstep. At the end of the hall were heavy double doors. As they approached, they saw water spraying through the gap between the doors right up to the ceiling. The doors groaned and began to crack under the tons of pressure.

"Back! Go back!!" Andy yelled and the four of them pivoted and ran back the way they came, taking a turn into a cross corridor. A man was rushing the other way, towards them. He soon saw the boy in Andy's arms and cried out, grabbing him away all while cursing heavily in Russian. He ran the opposite away and Miranda cried out to him.

"No! Not that way! Come back!"

But the double doors blasted open and a wall of water thundered into the corridor. The father and his child disappeared instantly.

As a wave blasted around the corner, Miranda and Andy yanked the twins into their arms yet again and ran just as a wave blasted around the corner, foaming from floor to ceiling. It gained on them like a locomotive. They made it to the stairway going up.

They bounded up the stairs with the girls in their arms as white water swirled behind them. On the landing they finally reached a steel gate that blocked their escape. Andy slammed against the gate, gripping the bars. A terrified steward standing guard on the landing above turned to run at the sight of the water thundering up the stairs.

"Wait! Help us! Unlock the gate!" Andy pleaded.

The steward ran on. The water was now well up around the pair, pouring through the gate and slamming them against it. In seconds it reached their waists and the twins feet which were wrapped around the women's bodies tightly.

"Help us! Please! We have children," Miranda attempted.

The steward stopped and looked back, witnessing Miranda and Andy, their arms clutching a scared Caroline and Cassidy while the water poured past them and onto the landing.

"Fucking 'ell," he muttered and ran back, slogging against the current. He pulled a key ring from his belt and struggled to unlock the padlock as the water fountains around them. The lights shorted out and the landing plunged into darkness. The steward was doing it by feel now.

"Come on, come on!" Andy growled, now up against the ceiling with Miranda and the girls.

Suddenly, the gate gave in and swung open. They were pushed through by the force of the water, making it to the stairs on the other side of the landing and following the steward up to the next deck.


	16. Nearer My God To Thee

Irv came reeling out of the first class entrance, looking wild eyed. He lurched down the deck and toward the bridge where a collapsible boat was being rolled over. Waltz music wafted across the ship. Somewhere, the band was still playing.

As he walked, a little girl, maybe two years old, was crying along in the alcove. She looked up at him beseechingly. Irv moved on without a glance back. He reached the crowd at the collapsible, pushing his way forward to where Murdoch helped a number of crewmen who were struggling to drag the boat to the davits with no luck.

He tried to signal for the first officer, but was ignored. 

Nearby, Lily and Doug were being pushed forward by the crowd behind. The Purser pushed them back, getting a couple seamen to help him. He brandished his gun and waved it in the air, yelling for the crowd to stay back.

At Collapsible A, Murdoch was no longer in control. The crowd began threatening to rush the boat. They pushed and jostled, yelling and shouting at the officers. The pressure from behind pushed them forward, and one guy fell off the edge of the deck into the water less than ten feet below.

"Give us a chance to live, you limey bastards!" Doug shouted. Murdoch fired his Webley twice in the air, then pointed it at the crowed.

"I'll shoot any man that tries to get past me." 

Irv took this opportunity to step toward him.

"We had a deal, damn you," he growled. Murdoch took the bills from his pocket and threw it against the chairman.

"Your money can't save you any more than it can save me." He shoved Irv and pointed the pistol at him. "Get back!"

A man next to Doug rushed forward, and he was shoved from behind. Murdoch chose to shoot the first man, and seeing Doug coming forward, put a bullet into his chest.

Doug collapsed, and Lily grabbed him, holding him in her arms as his life flowed out over the deck.

Murdoch watched, then turned to his men and saluted smartly before putting the pistol to his temple. Chief Officer Wilde rushed forward, trying to stop him.

"No, Will!"

BLAM!

He dropped like a puppet with the strings cut and toppled over the edge of the boat deck into the water a few feet below.

Irv stared in horror at Murdoch's body bobbing in the black water. Meanwhile, the crew rushed to get the last few women aboard the boat. Irv remembered the child crying in the alcove. He ran back and scooped her up before pushing his way toward the boat, cradling her in his arms.

"Here's a child! I've got a child!" He ran up to the Purser. "Please. I'm all she has in the world."

The Purser was skeptical, but nodded curtly and allowed him into the boat. He climbed in, taking a seat with the women. 

"There, there."

...

Andy, Miranda, and the twins ran up a seemingly endless amount of stairs as the ship groaned and torqued around them.

They sped through the first class smoking room. Thomas Andrews stood alone in front of the fireplace, staring at the large painting above the mantle. The fire was still going.

Miranda recognized him suddenly, and noticed that his lifebelt was off, lying on a table nearby.

They stopped.

"Won't you even make a try for it, Mr. Andrews?" the editor asked.

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

"I'm sorry that I didn't build a ship as strong as you, Ms. Priestly."

Andy gently nudged Miranda. "It's going fast, we've got to keep moving."

Andrews picked up his lifebelt then and handed it to the older woman.

"Good luck to you, Miranda."

"And to you, Mr. Andrews."

Andy pulled her away, and they ran with the twins through the revolving door.

...

"Right, that's it then," Wallace Hartley concluded after his orchestra finished another waltz. The others walked away, going forward along the deck, wishing each other luck. Hartley stood in place, raised his violin and began playing the opening notes to the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee". One by one, the band members turned around, hearing the lonely melody. Without a word, they walked back to their places, joining in and filling out the sound so that it reached all over the ship on the still night.

Along the rest of the ship, things were turning to calmed chaos.

A seaman pulled off his lifebelt and caught up to Captain Smith as he walked toward the bridge. He offered it, but Smith seemed to stare right through him. Without a word he turned and entered the enclosed wheelhouse, closing the door. He was alone, surrounded by the gleaming brass instruments. It seemed as if he would inwardly collapse.

In the first class smoking room, Mr. Andrews stood like a statue. He took out his pocketwatch to check the time. Then he opened the mantle clock in front of him and adjusts it to the correct time: 2:12 a.m. Everything must be correct.

In the Priestly parlour suite water swirls in from the private promenade deck. Mock ups become submerged. Shoots transform under the water's surface. Coco Chanel's evening gowns come to life.

Down the hall in another first class cabin, elderly Ida and Isador Strauss stare at the ceiling, holding hands like young lovers. Water pours into the room through a doorway. It swirls around the bed, two feet deep and rising fast.

In a steerage cabin somewhere in the bowels of the ship, a young Irish mother tucked her two children into bed. She pulled up the covers, making sure they were warm and cozy. She then lies down with them on the bed, and spoke soothingly and holding them.

On the boat deck, a wave of water traveled up as the bridge finally sunk into the water. On the port side, collapsible boat B was picked up by the water. Working frantically, men were trying to detach it from the falls so the ship wouldn’t drag it under. Colonel Gracie handed Lightoller a pocket knife and he began to saw furiously at the ropes as the water swirled around his legs. The boat, still upside down, was swept off the ship. Men start diving in, swimming with it.

In collapsible A, Irv sat next to the wailing child, whom he had already completely forgotten. He watched as the water rose around the men as they worked, scrambling to get the ropes cut so the ship wouldn’t drag the collapsible under.

Lily struggled to remove the lifebelt from Doug's body and placed it on herself as the water rose around her.

Back in the submerged bridge, Captain Smith hovered over the wheel, watching the black water climbing the windows. Upon his face was the stricken expression of a damned soul on Judgment Day. The windows bursted suddenly and a wall of water edged with shards of glass slammed into Smith. He disappeared into a vortex of foam.

Collapsible A was hit by a wave of water as the bow plunged suddenly. It partially swamped the boat, washing it along the deck. Over a hundred passengers were plunged into the freezing water and the area around the boat became a frenzy of splashing, screaming people.

As men began trying to climb into the collapsible, Irv grabbed an oar and pushed them back into the water.

"Get back! You'll swamp us!" he shouted.

Lily, swimming for her life, got swirled under a davit. The ropes and pulleys tangle around her as the davit went under the water. She was dragged down. Underwater she struggled to free herself, and then kicked back to the surface. She broke the surface, gasping for air in the freezing water.

Wallace Hartley saw the water rolling rapidly up the deck towards them. He held out the last note of the hymn in a sustain, then lowered his violin.

"Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight.


	17. Death Of Titanic

Lily was drawn up against the grating of a stokehold vent as water poured through it. The force of tons of water roaring down the ship trapped her against it, and she was dragged down under the surface as the ship sank. She struggled to free herself but could not. Suddenly, there was a concussion deep in the bowels of the ship as a furnace exploded and a blast of hot air belched out of the ventilator, ejecting Lily. She surfaced in a roar of foam and kept swimming.

...

Andy, Miranda, and the twins ran out of the palm court into a dense crowd. Andy pushed her way to the rail and looked at the state of the ship. The bridge was under water and there was chaos on deck. Andy helped Miranda put the lifebelt on. Around them, people flooded past, shouting and pushing.

"Okay, we have to keep moving aft. We have to stay on the ship as long as possible."

They pushed their way forward through the panicking crowd, clambering over the A-Deck rail. Then using all their strength, lowering each twin toward the deck below. Andy holding their hands and lowering them individually. They dangled, then Miranda caught them below. Andy jumped down after them and they joined a rush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narrow stairs to the well deck, the only way aft.

Seeing that the stairs were impossible, Andy climbed over the B-Deck railing and helped the other three over. They used the same method again this time Miranda lowering the twins. When Miranda came over Andy tried to catch her but she fell in a heap. Head cook, Charles Joughin, now three sheets to the wind, happened to be next to her and hauled Miranda to her feet.

"Mommy, I'm cold, I'm so cold," Caroline mumbled as the editor found ground on the deck. 

Under her breath, Cassidy made a comment along the lines of everyone being cold. The older woman shrugged the coat she was wearing off her arms and draped it around the girls.

"Take it," Cassidy mumbled and let her sister shiver into the coat before moving and grabbing Andy's hand as the group pushed through the crowd across the well deck.

Near them, at the rail, people were jumping into the water. The ship groaned and shuddered. The man ahead of Andy was walking like a zombie.

He prayed, "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"

"You wanna walk a little faster through that valley there?" Andy asked and pushed him up the stairs.

...

On one of the steam funnels, the stay cables snapped on top, and they lashed down like steel whips into the water. Nearby, Irv watched as the funnel toppled from it's mounts. It fell like a temple pillar twenty eight feet across. It whomped into the water with a tremendous splash. People swimming underneath it disappeared in an instant.

Lily, a few feet away, was hurled back by a huge wave. She came up gasping, still swimming. The water poured into the open end of the funnel drawing in several swimmers. The funnel sank, disappearing, but hundreds of tons of water poured down through the thirty foot hole where the funnel stood, thundering down into the belly of the ship. A whirlpool formed, a hole in the ocean, like an enormous toilet flush. T. W. McCauley, the gym instructor on the ship swam in a frenzy as the vortex drew him in. He got sucked down like a spider going down a drain.

Lily swam like Hell as more people were sucked down behind her. She managed to get clear, and was going to live no matter what it took.

All around, water roared through the doors and windows, cascading down the grand staircase like rapids. John Jacob Astor was swept down the marble steps to A-Deck which was already flooded, a roiling vortex. He grabbed the headless cherub at the bottom of the staircase and wrapped his arms around it. He then looked up in time to see the thirty foot glass dome overhead explode inward with a wave of water washing over it. A Niagara of sea water thundered down into the room, blasting through the first class opulence. It was the Armageddon of elegance.

Everywhere else, the flooding was horrific. Walls and doors were splintered like kindling. Water roared down corridors with pile-driver force.

The Cartmell family was at the top of a stairwell, jammed against a locked gate like Andy and Miranda had been. Water boiled up the stairwell behind them. Bert Cartmell shook the gate futilely, shouting for help. Little Cora wailed as the water boiled up around them all.

As the ship tilted further, everything not bolted down inside began to shift.

Cupboards burst open in the pantry, showering the floor with tons of china. A piano slid across the floor, crashing into a wall. Furniture tumbled across the Smoking Room floor.

On the A-deck promenade, passengers lost their grip and slid down the wooden deck like a bobsled run, hundreds of feet before hitting the water. Emily Charlton, Miranda's maid, slipped as she struggled along the railing and slid away screaming.

...

Miranda, Andy, and the twins struggled to climb the well deck stairs as the ship tilted. Hundreds of people were already on the poop deck, and more pouring up every second. The three Priestly women and Andy clung together as they struggled across the tilting deck. 

As the bow went down, the stern rose. In boat number two, which was just off of the stern, passengers gaped as the giant bronze propellers rose out of the water like gods of the deep. People began jumping from the well deck, the poop deck, and the gangway doors. Some hit debris in the water and were hurt or killed.

The group of four kept climbing aft as the angle increased rapidly. Hundreds of passengers on the poop deck clung to every fixed object on deck, huddled on their knees around Father Byles, who had his voice raised in prayer. They were praying, sobbing, or just staring at nothing, their minds blank with dread.

Pulling herself from handhold to handhold, Andy tugged Miranda and the twins aft along the deck.

They struggled on, pushing through the praying people. A man lost his footing and slid toward them. Miranda helped him back to his feet.

The propellers were now twenty feet above the water and rising faster.

Miranda, Andy, and the twins made it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. They gripped the rail, jammed in between other people. It was the spot where Andy pulled the editor back onto the ship, just two nights--a lifetime ago.

The lights flickered, threatening to go out. Miranda gripped Andy and her daughters as the stern rose into a night sky ablaze with stars.

Miranda stared about at the faces of the doomed. Near them was the Dahl family, clinging together stoically. Helga looked at her briefly, and her eyes were infinitely sad.

Next to her Miranda spotted a young mother, clutching her five year old son who was crying in terror.

"Shhh. Don't cry. It'll all be over soon, darling. It'll all be over soon."

...

From Boat Six, Nigel watched. The sounds of the dying ship and the screaming people came across the water. The giant spectacle of Titanic loomed, her lights blazing, reflecting in the still water. It's stern was high in the air, angled up over forty five degrees. The propellers were a hundred and fifty feet out of the water. Over a thousand passengers clung to the decks, looking from a distance like a swarm of bees. The image was shocking, unbelievable, unthinkable. Nigel stared at the spectacle, unable to frame it or put it into any proportion.

"God Almighty," Molly whispered.

The great liner's lights flickered and then went out.

All over the ship, a sound wave of desperate screams cut into the night, cold as the air itself. Titanic became a black silhouette against the stars.

Then, a loud cracking came across the water.

Near the third funnel, a yawning chasm opened with a thunder of breaking steel. The ship's structure ripped apart, becoming a widening maw, straight down into the bowels of the ship. People fell into the widening crevasse like dolls. 

The stay cables on the funnel part snapped across the decks like whips, ripping off davits and ventilators. A man was hit by a whipping cable and was snatched away. Another cable smashed into the railing and ripped it free. Fires, explosions and sparks lit the chasm as the hull split down through nine decks to the keel. The sea poured into the gaping wound.

The stern half of the ship, almost four hundred feet long, fell back toward the water. On the poop deck, everyone screamed as they felt themselves plummeting. 

Swimming in the water directly under the stern a few unfortunates shrieked as they saw the keel coming down on them like God's boot heel. The massive stern section fell back almost level, thundering down into the sea and pushing out a mighty wave of displaced water.

Miranda, the girls, and Andy struggled to hold onto the stern rail. They felt the ship seemingly right itself. Some of the people prayed as they thought it was salvation.

"We are saved!"

Andy looked at Miranda and shook her head grimly.

Now the horrible mechanics played out. Pulled down by the weight of the flooded bow, the buoyant stern tilted up rapidly. They felt the rush of the ascent as the fantail angled up again. Everyone clung to bench railing, ventilators, anything to keep from sliding as the stern lifted. It went up and up, past forty five degrees, then past sixty. People started to fall, sliding and tumbling. They skidded down the deck, screaming and flailing to grab onto something. They wrenched other people loose and pulled them down as well. There was a pile up of bodies on the forward rail. The Dahl family fell one by one.

"We have to move!" Andy spouted and began moving to climb over the stern rail. She held her arms out to the other three. The twins and their mother were terrified to move.

"Come on! I've got you! I've got all of you," she said, and grabbed Caroline's hands. She pulled one twin over the rail, and then the other. Next she hauled Miranda over, in the same place she pulled her over two nights earlier. She made it over just as the railing was horizontal and the deck was vertical. Andy held her fiercely.

The stern was now straight up in the air, a rumbling black monolith standing against the stars. It hung there like that for a long grace note, it's buoyancy stable. Miranda lied on the railing, looking down fifteen stories to the boiling sea at the base of the stern section. People near them, who didn't climb over, hung from the railing. Their legs dangled over the long drop. They fell one by one, plummeting down the vertical face of the poop deck. Some of them bounced horribly off deck benches and ventilators.

Miranda and Andy lied side by side, the twins between them on the vertical face of the hull. Just beneath their feet were the gold letters Titanic emblazoned across the stern.

Miranda stared down terrified at the black ocean waited below to claim them. It was a surreal moment.

The final relentless plunge began as the stern section flooded. The stern dropped like an elevator.

Andy began talking fast. "Okay, I need you guys to listen to me. On the count of three take a deep breath and hold it right before we go into the water. The ship will suck us down. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. None of us can let go of each other's hands. We're gonna make it, trust me."

The four of them grabbed hands, Andy holding Caroline's. Caroline holding Cassidy's, and Cassidy holding her own mother's. 

Miranda stared at the water coming up at them, and squeezed Cassidy's harder.

"I trust you," she told Andy.

Below them, the poop deck was disappearing. The plunge gathered speed, the boiling surface engulfing the docking bridge and then rushing up the last thirty feet. 

The stern descended into the boiling sea. The name Titanic disappeared, and the four of them vanished under the water.

Where the ship stood, now there was nothing. Only the black ocean.


	18. Sea Of Humanity

Bodies whirled and spun, some limp as dolls, others struggling spasmodically as the vortex sucked them down and tumbled them. 

Miranda kicked hard for the surface, holding tightly to Cassidy and pulling her up. Somewhere along the swirl of water, the twins' hands slipped, and Andy, who was grasping Caroline tightly, separated from the others.

Andy and Caroline surfaced among the crowd. It was roiling with the chaos of screaming, thrashing people. Over a thousand people were now floating where the ship went down. Some were stunned, gasping for breath. Others were crying, praying, moaning, shouting, screaming.

Miranda and Cassidy surfaced nearby.

"Andrea! Caroline! Andrea!!" she screamed, pulling Cassidy further into her.

The other two, hearing the cries, began swimming frantically. The coat Caroline was wearing was heavy around the small girl's body, but Andy grasped it anyway and they hauled themselves over to the voices calling their names, barely having time to gasp for air before people were clawing at them. People driven insane by the water, four degrees below freezing, a cold so intense it was indistinguishable from death by fire.

Andy spotted Miranda just as a man moved to push the editor and her daughter under, trying to climb on top of her, senselessly trying to get out of the water, to climb onto anything. Andy punched him repeatedly, pulling her and Cassidy free.

"Swim, girls! Swim!" Andy shouted hoarsely.

Miranda and the twins tried, but their strokes were not as effective as Andy's because of their lifejackets. They broke out of the clot of people. Andy needed to find some kind of flotation, anything to get them out of the freezing water.

"Keep swimming. Keep moving. Come on, we can do it."

All about them there was a tremendous wailing, screaming and moaning. A chorus of tormented souls. And beyond that, nothing but black water stretching to the horizon. The sense of isolation and hopelessness was overwhelming.

Andy stroked rhythmically, the effort keeping her from freezing.

"Look for something floating. Some debris, wood, anything," Andy told the other three.

"It's so cold," Miranda huffed.

"I know. I know. Help me, here. Look around."

Andy's words kept her focused, taking her mind off of the wailing around them and the twins shivering bodies. She scanned the water, panting, barely able to draw a breath. She turned around and screamed. A devil was right in front of her face. It was the black french bulldog, swimming right at her like a sea monster in the darkness, its coal eyes bugging. It motored past her like it was heading for Newfoundland.

Beyond it, Miranda spotted something in the water.

"What's that?"

Andy looked to where she was pointing, and the four of them made for it together. It was a piece of wooden debris, intricately carved, and huge. They pushed the twins up onto it, then clambered up themselves. As they slid along their bellies, the door began to sink a little and water wafted across. Miranda and Andy then moved to pull the twins away from the edges of the door and on top of them so they were completely out of the water. Andy had the thicker portion of the wood. Miranda's legs were halfway in the water.

They now clung to each other as best as they could. Their breaths floated around them in a cloud as they panted from exertion.

...

In Collapsible Boat A, it was overloaded and half flooded. Men clung to the sides in the water. Others, swimming, were drawn to it as their only hope. Irv, standing in the boat, slapped his oar in the water as a warning.

"Stay back! Keep off!"

Lily, exhausted and near the limit, made it almost to the boat. Irv clubbed her with the oar, cutting open her scalp.

"You don't... understand... I have... to get... to America."

Irv pointed with the oar.

"It's that way!"

Lily floated away, panting each breath in agony. The spirit visibly left her.

The screaming continued from the water. Desperate pleas from everyone.

"Come back! Please! We know you can hear us. For God's sake!"

"Please, help us! Save one life! SAVE ONE LIFE!"

In Boat Six, Nigel had his ears covered against the wailing in the darkness. The first class women in the boat sat, stunned, listening to the sounds of hundreds screaming.

Quartermaster Hitchens shook his head.

"They'll pull us right down I'm tellin' ya!" he said.

"Knock it off, yer scarin' me. Come on girls, grab an oar. Let's go," Molly Brown stood up.

Nobody moved.

"Well come on!"

The women wouldn't meet her eyes. They huddled into their ermine wraps.

"I don't understand a one of you. What's the matter with you? It's your men out there! We got plenty of room for more," Molly declared.

For Nigel, it was his boss and her two children out there.

"And there will be one less on this boat, if you don't shut that hole in yer face!" Hitchens hissed at her.

Nigel closed his eyes and covered his ears, shutting it all out.

In Boat One, Sir Cosmo and designer Lucile Duff-Gordon sat with ten other people in a boat that was two thirds empty. They were two hundred yards from the screaming in the darkness.

"We should do something," one of the crewmen said. Lucile, terrified, squeezed Cosmo's hand and pleaded him with her eyes. What she didn't know, is that her friend, the biggest publisher of her work was in the water two hundred feet away.

"It's out of the question," Sir Cosmo mumbled.

The crewmembers, intimidated by a nobleman, acquiesced. They hunched guiltily, hoping the sound would stop soon.

Twenty boats, most half full, floated in the darkness. None of them moved.

...

Andy, Miranda, and the twins drifted under the blazing stars. The water was glassy, with only the faintest undulating swell. Miranda could actually see the stars reflecting on the black mirror of the sea. Andy squeezed the water out of Caroline's coat, tucking it in tightly around the girls legs. She hugged and rubbed her arms, Miranda cuddling Cassidy on top of her as her entire body shook. Their faces were chalk within the darkness.

"It's getting quiet," Caroline whispered.

"Just a few more minutes. It'll take them a while to get the boats organized," Andy assured her.

Miranda reached for Andy's hand. She was unmoving, just staring into space. She knew the truth. There wouldn't be any boats. A few feet away, she saw that Chief Officer Wilde had stopped moving and was slumped in his lifejacket, almost looking asleep. He had died from exposure already.

"I don't know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all this," Andy mumbled.

Miranda laughed weakly, but it sounded like a gasp of fear. Miranda found Andy's eyes in the dim light.

"I love you too, Andrea," the editor cried.

Andy squeezed her hand tighter.

"No, don't say your goodbyes, Miranda. Don't you give up. Don't do it," Andy scolded.

"I'm so cold."

"We're going to get out of this. We're going to go on and we're going to watch the twins grow up and we're going to die old ladies, warm together in bed. Not here. Not this night. Do you hear me?"

"I can't feel my body."

"Miranda, listen to me. Listen. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Andy struggled to speak against the cold.

"It brought me to you. And I'm thankful, Miranda. I'm thankful." Her voice trembled, the cold working its way further in towards her heart.

Miranda turned her head to face her.

"Andrea, do me this honor and promise me you will survive too, that you will never give up on me, or the twins. That no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless, promise me now, and never let go of that promise," Miranda cried more.

"I promise," Andy said, her eyes unwavering.

"Never let go."

"I promise. I'll never let go, Miranda. I'll never let go."

It was quiet now around them, except for the lapping of the water.


	19. Never An Absolution

The beam of an electric torch played across the water like a searchlight as Boat 14 parted the water.

The torch illuminated floating debris, a poignant trail of flotsam: a violin, a child's wooden soldier, a framed photo of a steerage family.

Then, their white lifebelts bobbing in the darkness like signposts, the first bodies coming into the torch's beam. The people were dead but they did not drown. Instead they were killed by the freezing water. Some looked like they could be sleeping. Others stared with frozen eyes at the stars. 

Soon the bodies were so thick the seamen could not row. They hit the oars on the heads of floating men and women. A wooden thunk. One seaman throws up. Officer Lowe saw a mother floating with her arms frozen around her lifeless baby. It was the worst moment of his life.

"We waited too long," he choked, then shouted, "Is there anyone there?"

...

Meters away from Boat 14, three Priestly's and one Sachs floated halfway in black water along a wooden door. The stars reflected in the mill pond surface, and the four of them seemed to be floating in interstellar space. They were absolutely still. Miranda and Andy's hands locked together. The twins on top of them. Andy had her other arm wrapped around Caroline, and she was staring upwards at the canopy of stars wheeling above her. A long sleep seemed to steal Andy, and she felt peace. 

The face of Caroline in front of her was pale, like the faces of the dead. Even the eleven year old girl in her arms seemed to feel like they were floating in a void. Andy herself was in a semi-hallucinatory state. She knew she was dying. Her lips could barely move as she sang a scrap of the old song:

"Come Josephine in my flying machine..."

As the water lapped across Miranda's legs next to her she paused to listen, and to look above her. The stars were like you've never seen them. The Milky Way a glorious band from horizon to horizon. On Andy's head, dust like ice crystals littered her hair. Her breathing was so shallow, she was almost motionless. On top of her, there was a movement from a twin, and Caroline's head shifted to stare out at the water.

The silhouette of a boat was crossing the watery stars. 

Andy tracked this movement and looked out as well. She saw men in the boat, rowing so slowly the oars lifted out of the syrupy water, leaving weightless pearls floating in the air. The voices of the men sounded slow and distorted.

Then the lookout flashed his torch toward them and the light flared across the water, outlining the bobbing corpses between. It flicked past their motionless forms and moved on. The men looked away.

Andy lifted her head from where her hair had frozen to the wood underneath her and turned to Miranda.

Caroline stirred, knowing what was going on, but unable to speak. Cassidy's eyes trailed from her sister's and down to Andy's.

Andy's voice was barely audible.

"Miranda."

Caroline reached out shakily and touched her mother's shoulder with a free hand. She didn't respond. The editor's face was rimmed with frost. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully. But she was not asleep.

"Miranda!" Andy said more urgently, the realization going through her. The twins were more aware now, and Cassidy began moving about on top of her mother, shaking her as if she'd open her eyes.

"Mommy, there's a boat," Caroline cried out desperately, but receiving no response.

"Miranda?"

The younger woman whimpered against the door as Boat 14 turned away. Cassidy was crying. Caroline turned away, as if she could avoid the terrifying reality in front of her. Maybe if she closed her eyes it wouldn't be real.

Andy cried too, and pulled Miranda's frozen hand up to her face, resting it against her cheek. Not that she could feel it.

All hope, will, and spirit left her. She looked again at the boat. It was further away now, the voices fainter. Andy watched them go.

Closing her eyes, she felt so weak, and there seemed to be no reason to even try. Caroline shifted again on top of her.

Andy's eyes suddenly snapped open at the movement. She raised her head suddenly, cracking the ice as she ripped her hair off the wood. She called out, but her voice was so weak they couldn't hear her. The boat was invisible now, the torch light a star impossibly far away. She struggled to draw breath, calling again.

"Come back, come back! Come back!"

It was not enough. Andy struggled to move, and she turned back to Miranda. Her hand, she realized, was frozen to the editor's. She breathed on it, melting the ice a little, and gently unclasping their hands, breaking away a thin tinkling film.

"I'll never let go. I promise."

She turned to Caroline and Cassidy, who were barely breathing on top of them.

"Caroline, I may need your help," she managed to huff out, pointing a shaky finger at Chief Officer Wilde's body floating a mere two meters away.

The twin wordlessly slid off of Andy and together they plunged into the icy water, holding each other as they swam to the officer and pulling his whistle. With all the strength she could muster, she blew into the whistle. It's sound slapped across the still water.

In Boat 14, Officer Lowe whipped around at the clear cut sound across the water.

"Come about!" he shouted to the man at the tiller, and to the survivors far out.

Andy was still blowing when the boat came to them, and she kept blowing when he pulled the whistle from her mouth and hauled her into the boat as she pointed to Caroline and Cassidy. She slipped into unconsciousness as they scrambled to cover her with blankets.

...

_The shrill sound of the whistle echoed in old Caroline's head._

_"Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water. Myself, my sister, and Andy included. Six, out of fifteen hundred._

_As Caroline spoke, the reality of what happened in that water eighty four years ago hit the Keldysh research team like never before. With her story, they had been put on Titanic in its final hours, and for the first time, they really did feel like grave robbers. Lovett, for the first time, has even forgotten to ask about the diamond. Caroline continued._

_"Afterward, the seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait. Wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution that would never come."_

...

In the twenty lifeboats, the faces of the survivors stared into emptiness: Bruce Ismay was in a trance, trembling. Irv Ravitz sipped from a hip flask offered to him by a black-faced stoker. Nigel Kipling hugged himself, rocking gently.

In Boat 14, Andy and the twins were swaddled. Only their faces were visible, white as the moon. The man next to her jumped up, pointing and yelling. Soon everyone was looking and shouting excitedly.

Officer Lowe lit a green flare and waved it as everyone shouted and cheered. Andy didn't react, floating beyond all human emotion.

She wasn't the one that was supposed to live.

Within moments, a ship's hull loomed over her with the letters Carpathia visible on the bow. Andy watched, rocked by the sea, her face blank, and the seamen helping survivors up the rope ladder to Carpathia's gangway doors.

...

It was the afternoon of the fifteenth, twelve hours after the ship had gone down. Irv Ravitz was searching the faces of the widows lining the deck, looking for Miranda. The deck of Carpathia was crammed with huddled people, and even the recovered lifeboats of Titanic. On a hatch cover sat an enormous pile of lifebelts. He kept walking toward the stern.

Seeing Irv's tuxedo, a steward approached him.

"You won't find any of your people back here, sir. It's all steerage."

Irv ignored him, and went out amongst the wrecked group, looking under shawls and blankets at one bleak face after another.

Andy stood sipping hot tea and wrapped in a blanket with the twins sitting nearby, holding each other, and grieving.

Her eyes focused on him as he approached her. He barely even recognized her. She looked like a refugee, her matted hair hanging in her eyes.

"Yes, I lived. How awkward for you."

"And Miranda, where is she?"

Andy's eyes went dark and he stopped, realizing.

"Nigel and I--"

Andy held her hand up, stopping him.

"Don't talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, since that is something you understand. From this moment on you do not exist for me, nor I for you. The twins are mine, and you shall not see us again. Do not attempt to find us. In return I will keep my silence. Your actions last night need never come to light, and you will get to keep the honor you have carefully purchased."

She fixed him with a glare as cold and hard as the ice which changed their lives.

"Is this in any way unclear?"

Irv stared, and after a long beat, finally spoke again.

"What do I tell Nigel, and Runway, and all of her designers?"

"That their editor and her daughters died with the Titanic."

She stood, turning to the rail, dismissing him. Irv was stricken with emotion. After a moment, he turned and walked away. Down below, the twins watched him go.

...

_"That was the last time I ever saw him. He hired Jacqueline Follet of course, and the magazine continued. But the crash of '29 hit Elias-Clarke hard, and he put a pistol in his mouth that year, or so I read. Andy took care of us until we grew. She died in '59. Cass didn't take it well, and she died a year later."_

...

On the Carpathia, Andy had one arm draped around each twin. It was 9pm on April 18th. She gazed up at the Statue of Liberty, looking just as it does in 1997, welcoming them home with a glowing torch. It was just as Lily saw it, so clearly in her mind.

As the ship docked, immigration officers flooded the steerage passengers and asked them questions as they came off the gangway. One of them approached Andy and the twins.

"May I take your name please, love?" he asked.

"Priestly. Andy Priestly."

The officer wrote the name down, and then asked the twins for theirs.

"Caroline Sachs." 

"Cassidy Sachs."

The words out of the girl's mouth shocked Andy, surely just as much as taking Miranda's name shocked them.

At this time, photographer's and reporters were crowding the dock. Andy took the hands of the twins and used this moment to slip away into the crowd.


	20. A Promise Kept

"Can you exchange one life for another? A caterpillar turns into a butterfly. If a mindless insect can do it, why couldn't my mother? Was it any more unimaginable than the sinking of the Titanic?"

Old Caroline sat with the group in the Imaging Shack, lit by the blue glow of the screens. She held her mother's haircomb with the jade butterfly on the handle in her gnarled hands.

Bodine sighed. "We never found anything on Andy. There's no record of her at all."

"No, there wouldn't be, would there? Cassidy and I told everyone she was our mother. I've never told anyone that I was the daughter of the famous editor Miranda Priestly until now," she turned to Serena. "Not even your grandfather. A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. I would have said that Andy saved my mother. But now I'll say, she saved all of us, in every way that a person can be saved."

Caroline closed her eyes.

" I don't even have a picture of her. She exists now only in my memory."

...

The Mir Two submersibles made their last pass over the ship wreck in the dark. Over a speaker came a voice ordering all subs to return to the surface.

The submersibles rose off of the deck of the wreck, taking its light with them, leaving Titanic once again in its fine and private darkness.

Back on deck of the Keldysh, a desultory wrap party for the expedition was in progress. There was music and some of the Russian crew members were dancing. Bodine was getting drunk in the aggressive style of Baker Joughin. 

Lovett stood off to the side, leaning over the rail and looking down into the black water. Serena approached him, offering a beer. She put her hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Lovett shook his head.

"We were pissin' in the wind the whole time." He held up a cigar. "I was saving this for when I found the diamond."

With a hefty throw, he launched the cigar over the railing and into the blackness beneath the ship.

"Three years, I've thought of nothing except Titanic. But I never got it. I never let it in."

Suddenly, Lovett noticed a figure moving through the lights far down at the stern of the ship.

"Oh shit."

Down below, Caroline walked through the shadows of the deck machinery. Her nightgown blew gently with the wind. Her feet were bare, and her hands were clutched at her chest, almost like she was praying.

Lovett and Serena ran down the stairs from the top deck, hauling ass.

Caroline reached the stern rail. Her gnarled fingers wrapping over the rail. Her ancient foot steps on the gunwale. She pushed herself up, leaning forward. Underneath her, the black water glinted far below. She was a striking imitation of the way her mother hung onto the stern railing of Titanic eighty four years ago.

Lovett and Serena ran up behind her.

"Grandma, wait!! Don't--"

Caroline turned her head, looking at them. Then she turned further, and it was clear that she had something in her hand, something she was about to toss overboard. It was the Heart of the Ocean.

"Stop! Don't come any closer. I'll drop it!"

Lovett saw his holy grail in her hand and his eyes went wide. Caroline kept holding it over the railing where she could drop it at any time.

"You had it the entire time?!" he exclaimed.

Caroline smiled at his incomprehension. She recalled April 18th, 1912, walking away from Pier 54 holding Andy's hand. Photographers' flashes went off like a battle behind her. She had her right hand stuffed in the pocket of a coat much to big for her. She frowned, feeling something, and then pulled out the necklace. Andy and Cassidy stopped walking and only stared at the diamond in amazement. 

Caroline returned from the memory.

"The hardest part about being so poor, was being so rich. But everytime I thought about selling it, I thought of Irv Ravitz. And somehow, we always got by," Caroline explained. 

She held it out over the water. Bodine and a couple other of the guys came up behind Lovett, reacting to what was in Caroline's hand.

"Holy shit," Bodine uttered.

"Don't drop it, Caroline," Lovett spoke.

Bodine leaned over and in a fierce whisper said, "Rush her."

"It's hers, you schmuck."

Lovett turned back to the old woman on the railing.

"Look, Caroline, I don't know what to say to a woman whose mother tries to jump off the Titanic when it's not sinking, and her daughter that jumps back onto it when it is. We're not dealing with logic here, I know that, but please, think about this a second."

Caroline nearly laughed. "I've thought about this for years. And I've come all the way out here so I could put it back where it belongs."

The massive diamond glittered. Lovett edged closer and held out his hand.

"Just let me hold it in my hand, Caroline. Please. Just once."

He came closer to her. It was reminiscent of Andy slowly moving up on Miranda at the stern of Titanic.

Surprisingly, Caroline calmly placed the massive stone in the palm of his hand, while still holding onto the necklace. Lovett gazed at the object of his quest. An infinity of cold scalpels glint in its blue depths. It was mesmerizing. It fit in his hand just like he imagined.

"My God."

His grip tightened on the diamond. He looked up and met her gaze. Her eyes were suddenly infinitely wise and deep.

"You look for treasures in the wrong place, Mr. Lovett. Only life is priceless, and making each day count."

His fingers relaxed. He opened them slowly. Gently she slipped the diamond out of his hand. He could feel it sliding away.

Then, with an impish little grin, Caroline tossed the necklace over the rail. Lovett gave a strangled cry and rushed to the rail in time to see it hit the water and disappear forever.

Bodine's face twisted.

"Aww!! That really sucks, lady!" he shouted.

Brock Lovett went through ten changes before he settled on a reaction. He laughed. He laughed until tears came to his eyes. Then he turned to Serena.

"Wouldn't you like to dance?"

Serena grinned at him and nodded. Caroline smiled, and she looked up at the stars.

In the black heart of the ocean, the diamond sank, twinkling end over end, into the infinite depths.

...

On Caroline's shelf sat a row of carefully arranged pictures: Caroline as a young actress in California, radiant, a theatrically lit studio publicity shot, Caroline and her husband, with their two children, Caroline with her son at his college graduation, Caroline with her children and grandchildren at her 70th birthday. A collage of images of a life lived well. The last image was of her and Cassidy, circa 1920. They were sitting on a horse at the surfline. The Santa Monica pier, with its rollercoaster behind them. Both twins were grinning.

Next to the pictures was Caroline, warm in her bed. She was very still. She could be sleeping, or maybe something else.

...

In darkness, Titanic loomed like a ghost out of the dark. It was then lit by a kind of moonlight, a light of the mind. Passing over the endless forecastle deck to the superstructure, moving faster than subs can move, almost like flying.

Inside, the echoing sound of distant waltz music could be heard. The rust faded away from the walls of the dark corridor and the ship was transformed. The grand staircase was vibrant with it's glowing chandelier. And in the room, populated by men in tie and tails, women in gowns. It was exquisitely beautiful.

At the bottom of the stairs a young woman in a beautiful white gown stood with her back turned, staring at the clock above the staircase. She turned, and it was Andy, holding her hand out to a glowing Miranda, with Cassidy and Caroline beside her. A kiss between the lovers, and the passengers, officers, and crew of the RMS Titanic smiled and applauded in the utter silence of the abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for sticking with this story and reading all twenty anxiety filled chapters.This is the first I've written for this pair, and this AU really just came to mind. I want you all to know that it pained me very very very very much to kill Miranda, and I didn't want to. But I had to write what I had to write. With that, once again, thank you all.


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